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THE PREACHER 



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•71 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 



THE PREACHER 

HIS PERSON, MESSAGE, AND METHOD 

A BOOK FOR THE CLASS-ROOM 
AND STUDY 



BY 



ARTHUR S. HOYT 

PROFESSOR OF HOMILETICS AND SOCIOLOGY IN THE 

AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 

AUTHOR OF "THE WORK OF PREACHING" 



"Ntto gark 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1909 

All rights reserved 



• A/6 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two CoDies Recerved 

FEB 10 1909 

Copyrignt Entry 

CLASS OW XXc. No. 

COPY 3. V 



Copyright, 1909, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1909. 



NorfoootJ 3^re88 

J. S. Cushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



In reverent and grateful memory of the Mother, whose 
life made possible and desirable the work of the preacher ; 
and of the Wife, whose love and taste ever kept from 
low content. 



PREFACE 

No apology is needed in publishing a new 
book on preaching. As long as the pulpit 
shall stand as the chief teacher of the religious 
life, young men will need to be taught how to 
receive and give the Word of God, and older 
men will welcome whatever promises to brighten 
their ideal and to renew their creative impulse. 
The only question is the worth of the book: 
does it meet the need of the present-day pulpit ? 
Will it help men to a message, divine in its 
experience and in its fitness to living issues ? 

In the changed atmosphere of modern life, it 
is not enough for the preacher to say the things 
that are expected; he must speak the truth 
that has found him and so will find other men; 
and therefore the lectures place emphasis upon 
the personal element in preaching. They at- 
tempt to portray the preacher as he ought to 
be in character and habit, and to uncover the 
sources of his real authority. 

Over against a sensational pulpit, with its 
worldly standards of immediate and tabulated 
results, is placed a spiritual service tested by 
spiritual measures and motives. Above the 



viii Preface 

superficial sway of eloquence is exalted an in- 
structive pulpit that comes from the growing 
knowledge of the Gospel and of life, and results 
in a stable, balanced, and comprehensive Chris- 
tianity. 

If the social consciousness of the age is to 
develop a finer sense of individuality and so a 
nobler responsibility, the preacher must pre- 
sent a Gospel that shall arouse and train the 
conscience, and inspire and direct the new social 
forces that are trying to realize the Kingdom of 
God on earth. 

To help the preacher speak with authority, 
touch the conscience and form the moral habits 
of the age, and make his work educative of the 
abundant life is the purpose of the book. It is 
sent forth with the earnest desire that some- 
thing of this large measure may be attained. 

ARTHUR S. HOYT. 
November 26. 1908. 



CONTENTS 

PAET I 
THE PERSON 

CHAPTEB PAGB 

I. The Personality of the Preacher . 1 

II. The Enrichment of Personality . . 21 

III. The Physical Life of the Preacher . 39 

TV. The Intellectual Life of the Preacher 63 

V. The Intellectual Method of the 

Preacher 87 

VI. The Spiritual Life of the Preacher . Ill 

VII. The Method of the Spiritual Life . 135 



PAET II 

THE MESSAGE 

VIII. The Authority of the Message . . 163 

IX. A Living Message 189 

X. The Aim of the Message . . . 207 

XI. The Contents of the Message . . 221 

XII. The Social Message .... 237 



IX 



Contents 



PART III 



THE METHOD 

OHAPTBB 

XIII. Evangelistic Preaching 

XIV. Expository Preaching . 
XV. Doctrinal Preaching 

XVI. Ethical Sermons 
XVII. The Ethics of Pulpit Speech 



PAGE 

259 
279 
305 
325 
349 



PART I 
THE PERSON 



" The Christian ministry is the largest, field for the 
growth of a hnman soul that this world offers. In it he 
who is faithful must go on learning more and more 
forever. 

" It is a continual climbing which opens continually 
wider prospects. It repeats the experience of Christ's 
disciples, of whom their Lord was always making larger 
men and then giving them the larger truth of which 
their enlarged natures had become capable." 

— Phillips Brooks. 



I 

THE PERSONALITY OF THE PREACHER 



OUTLINE 

Personality in all work. 

Personality has special value in Preaching. 

The personal quality of thought, style, and speech. 
Here a reason for the perpetuity of preaching. 
The power of example in speech. 
Personality has a peculiar importance in Preaching from the 
Nature of the Gospel. 
Truth is incarnate. Personality is used by Christ in 

extending His Kingdom. 
The New Testament words for ministry are messenger and 

witness. 
The secret of the Preacher is the secret of life. 
The truth emphasized by Christ's training of the disciples. 
The History of Preaching shows the importance of the Per- 
sonality of the Preacher. 
The Personal Qualities that make the Preacher. 

The moral and spiritual qualities first : sincere faith, moral 
earnestness, human sympathy, courage, and hopefulness. 
Intellectual and physical gifts. 
The Sense of Vocation and its effect upon the Life of the 
Preacher. 

■ 
References : 

Phillips Brooks. "Lectures on Preaching." 

Lect. 1, 2. 
Behrends. "Philosophy of Preaching." Lect. 

3. 
Chadwick. "The Pastoral Teaching of St. 

Paul." Chap. 2, 3. 
Charles Cuthbert Hall. "The Ideal Minister." 
The Atlantic. Oct., 1907. 



2 



THE PERSONALITY OF THE PREACHER 

The person of the preacher is the life of the 
sermon. " A true sermon is a real deed. It puts 
the preacher's personality into an act." True 
preaching is not only the expression of life, but 
in the final analysis can be no better than the 
life. The man can never be separated from his 
speech. 

In this respect the preacher, though he is pre- 
eminent, does not stand alone. The person 
counts in every work. Work is life, and the 
value of the work depends upon the amount of 
life put into it. The chief value in any effort is 
the effect upon the worker. All our efforts are 
a few things in God's sight, and His approval 
depends upon the quality of the work, the 
thought and conscience and purpose put into it. 
God always has more regard for the worker than 
the work. 

The true outcome of the work, then, is life, 
because it is life that goes into it. The personal 
quality of the work gives it distinction and 

3 



4 The Personality of the Preacher 

power, whether it be the building of a house, 
the writing of a book, or the teaching of a child. 

While the worker counts chiefly in all work, 
it is easy to see that in preaching the personality 
has special value. 

The secret and charm of all public speech is 
in the speaker. It lies beyond analysis, in the 
mystery of personality. Both what he says 
and how he says it have his peculiar flavor. All 
genuine speech is personal. It cannot be an 
imitation — the echo of a voice ; it must be 
the man himself who speaks. The thought is 
his thought, truth that has flashed upon his 
soul, that has sounded the depths of his nature, 
that has been inspiring or subduing vision, a 
conviction, bending his whole nature to alle- 
giance, a passion constraining all the forces of 
life to its advocacy. Every message has the 
personal quality that Paul puts into "My 
Gospel.' ' The personal must be the channel 
of the spiritual and the moral. It is so in 
Christ ; it must be so in every teacher of Christ. 

It is a long-accepted axiom of rhetoric that 
the " style is the man." Something goes into 
it that cannot be included or defined by the laws 
of writing: the subtle infusion of life, some 
word or image that mirrors the soul; some 
relation of ideas that reveals the simple, inevi- 
table truth, as in the case of John Henry New- 



The Personality of the Preacher 5 

man; or conveys the sense of the mystery and 
infinitude of life, as in some of the writing of 
Frederick W. Robertson ; the sharp definition or 
suggestive image of a Parkhurst ; the simple yet 
exhaustless flow of a Brooks ; the great vista, 
beyond the accurate knowledge, of a Bushnell. 

And still more evidently the speaking con- 
veys the personality. The form, the face, the 
voice, the manner, — even without marked 
peculiarities, — convey the qualities of the 
man. They are not the mask, but the channels 
for the impart ation of life. There is more than 
the physical quality to the voice. Its sounds 
are pulses of the soul. The word must be 
spoken to give its utmost meaning and reach 
its largest power. The spoken word has more 
of life than the written word, — and when the 
voice ceases, something of the charm and power 
are gone. Great orators that have swayed mul- 
titudes by the " Golden Mouth" or "Silver 
Tongue' ' do not justify their name in the 
printed page. "That voice would strangely 
stir my heart, though I could not understand a 
word he said," was the remark of a keen critic 
upon a speaker of magnetic personality. 

Here is a reason for the perpetuity of preaching. 
Public speech may change its form and at times 
lose something of its proportion, but it can never 
change its mission or lose its power. 



6 The Personality of the Preacher 

The printed page may be a larger educator, 
but it can never displace the pulpit. While 
men in assemblies are peculiarly receptive and 
responsive to influence, while the personal ele- 
ment is necessary to make truth clear and per- 
suasive, and while the person finds its completest 
expression through the living voice, the pulpit 
will remain, what it has always been, the chief 
spiritual instructor and inspirer of men. 

There is a still deeper truth in the relation of 
personality to speech. In speaking there is the 
subtle influence of example. Paul constantly 
appealed to the witness of his life. The example 
of singleness and sacrifice wings the message of 
truth. The man must be back of his truth. 
He must live the truth, or give the impression 
that he lives it, if his speech is to have any worth. 
The finest speech — men will have none of it 
at last if the life does not ring true to the 
word. "What you do speaks so loud that I 
cannot hear what you say," is the oft-quoted 
wisdom of Emerson. 

The nature of the Gospel gives to personality 
a peculiar importance in preaching. The Gos- 
pel is an Incarnation. "The Word became flesh 
and dwelt among us, and we beheld Sis glory, 
glory as of the only begotten from the Father, 
full of grace and truth." Truth is not an ab- 
straction, it is concrete and personal. There is 



The Personality of the Preacher 7 

no moral and spiritual truth apart from a per- 
son. Christ is the truth. Redemption is "not 
a truth, nor an ideal, not an institution, with 
their external and aesthetic effect, but it is a per- 
sonal act, the external act of an external person, 
with all the moral effect due to that." 1 

The study of truth in the Gospel of John 
brings out the vital, inseparable relation of 
truth and personality. The word truth is 
peculiar to John, and is the form by which he 
conveys the strongest impression of the life of 
Christ. Nicodemus talks with Christ about 
truth. But Christ at once turns the thought 
to life, — the life from above that has vision and 
approval. Truth then is not a mere fact of 
knowledge, a conclusion of reason, but some- 
thing that must be done, a principle and prac- 
tice of the life. Again Christ speaks of the 
freedom of the truth that comes from loving 
fellowship with Him. Truth is but idle words 
unless it becomes a conviction and a practice, 
unless it is a living, renewing, freeing power. 

And the idea of truth gets its final and fullest 
statement in the prayer with which Christ lays 
bare his life and work to the Father. He prays 
for his disciples, " Sanctify them in the truth : 
Thy word is truth. As Thou didst send Me 

1 Forsyth, " Positive Preaching and Modern Mind;" 
p. 65. 



8 The Personality of the Preacher 

into the world, even so send I them into the 
world, and for their sakes I sanctify Myself, 
that they themselves also may be sanctified in 
truth." The word of God is a life, and the life 
is to make men to live as the Sons of God. " We 
know," says Bishop Brooks, "that truth can- 
not mean in Him merely objective verity, it 
must have in it the elements of character, since 
the leading of man into it by the Divine Son is 
to be the perfection of man's life. It is His 
own character through which alone truth can 
come to make character in His disciples." 

Christ's method of extending the Kingdom is 
the personal method. The two words in the New 
Testament for the ministry are witness and mes- 
senger. The preacher is a sent man, with a 
message to give which none but he can give. 
Nothing is clearer in the teaching of Christ and 
the testimony of the Early Church. "As ye 
go, preach, saying, 'the Kingdom of Heaven is 
at hand.' " 1 The solemn and emphatic charge 
as Christ leaves the little company — His last 
words are "to preach the Gospel" and "make 
disciples of all nations." 

The men whom Christ chose and sent recog- 
nized that preaching was their chief work and 
that they had a distinct message which had been 
given them by their Master. They use for the 

1 Matt. x. 7. 



The Personality of the Preacher 9 

most part echoes and reminiscences of Christ's 
own words. The Acts and the Epistles are 
unmistakable as to their view of their work. 
Soon after Pentecost they asked for the appoint- 
ment of deacons in order to be free to devote 
themselves to what they considered their proper 
work, — "the ministry of the word and prayer." 1 

To the elders of Ephesus, Paul describes his 
work as declaring, teaching, testifying: "I 
hold not my life of any account, as dear unto 
myself, so that I may accomplish my course, and 
the ministry which I received from the Lord 
Jesus to testify the Gospel of the grace of God." 2 

The Epistles are full of the same thought. In 
Romans, Paul speaks of himself "as separated 
unto the Gospel of God." 3 In First Corinthians 
ministers are " stewards of the mysteries of God." 4 
In Second Corinthians, Paul speaks of himself 
as "an ambassador of Christ, intrusted with the 
ministry of reconciliation, and beseeching men 
in Christ's stead to be reconciled to God." 5 In 
Timothy and Titus, he is a preacher and a 
herald. And Paul's impression of his chief 
work seems no more distinct and binding than 
that of the other apostles. Evangelist, prophet, 
teacher, are the great words of calling in the 
New Testament. All the leaders of the early 

1 Acts vi. 2-4. 2 Acts xx. 24. 3 Rom. i. 1-5. 

4 1 Cor. iv. 1. 5 2 Cor. v. 18-20. 



10 The Personality of the Preacher 

church had this sense of calling, this conviction 
of message, and handed it down unimpaired to 
their successors. 

But the other word — witness — is even of prior 
importance. The message of the Apostles was 
what they had seen and heard, — what they had 
experienced of the grace of God. They were to 
be witnesses, speaking of their knowledge gained 
by personal association with Christ, and by the 
light thrown on that knowledge by the Holy 
Spirit. "When the Comforter is come, He 
shall bear witness of me, and ye also bear wit- 
ness." * The disciple is sent as Christ was sent. 
" In Him was life, and the life was the light of 
men." " Ye are the light of the world." Life is 
always first. Light is simply the outcome of 
life. Until men know the truth, experience its 
power; until truth becomes assimilated, trans- 
muted into life, men cannot become the effective 
messengers of truth. "He charged them not to 
depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the prom- 
ise of the Father." "Ye shall receive power 
when the Holy Ghost is come upon you; and 
ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, 
and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the 
uttermost part of the earth." 2 Witness and 
messenger are one and inseparable in the 
work of the preacher. Truth spreads as life 

1 John xv. 26. 2 Acts i. 8. 



The Personality of the Preaeher 11 

spreads. The law for the increase of the 
Kingdom is the personal touch of a vitalized 
person. 

The secret of the preacher is the secret of 
life, — the abundant life. There are natural 
gifts of social contact and public teaching that 
are serviceable to the ministry, and these are to 
be trained to the highest efficiency; but these 
are the channels, the means, not the source or 
elements of power. The real problem of preach- 
ing is the problem of the spiritual life. The 
great question for us is to be and not to do ; to 
be and keep ourselves and grow in vital personal 
relation to Jesus Christ. We cannot doubt this 
as we consider our Lord's training of the dis- 
ciples. His personal discourses, the profounder 
ones, are about the inner life. Think how He 
dwells upon it at the last supper ! They must 
abide in Him, if they are to do anything for Him ; 
the fruit that glorifies the Father is of the Spirit 
— the graces of character. God's plan of estab- 
lishing His Kingdom is by inspired men, — the 
same now as in the age of the apostles; "God 
possessed men," as was said of Maurice. 

The history of preoxhing shows the importance 
of the personality of the preacher. 

The progress of Christianity is traced by the 
names of notable men who have proclaimed its 
truths, prophetic personalities who dominated 



12 The Personality of the Preacher 

the thought and life of their age. They spoke 
so that men were roused from a low, conventional 
religion and heard the voice of God as at first. 
It was the great mind and heart, — the sensi- 
tive, fearless soul that caught and expressed the 
larger vision of God and His Christ. It was 
the man that spoke and the man that made the 
truth effective. The message has passed into 
the heritage of the church, but the name is still 
a watchword and inspiration to men. 

"They are the dead but sceptred kings 
That rule as from their urns." 

The average pulpit has been quickened by 
these inspiring personalities, enriched by even 
the unconscious influence of noble lives. There 
has been an unfailing supply of spiritual leader- 
ship and instruction. Whatever wrongs the 
church as an organization may have committed, 
whatever admixture of selfish and worldly ele- 
ments has entered into the life of the ministry, 
we can say that God has spoken through the 
pulpit more than anywhere else in the world. 
And though all the teachings of the ministry 
have not been the mind of Christ, in every age 
the essential truth has been spoken and fol- 
lowed. In spite of the failures of mistaken men, 
or the sins of hirelings, the world has been nobly 
served. It could be wished that the choicest 



The Personality of the Preacher 13 

sons would ever choose this hardest and highest 
work, that all the servants of the church were 
more richly endowed with natural and spiritual 
gifts. But the line of noble men from Christ to 
our own day has never been broken. "It is 
an unbroken succession, not by the ordinations 
of men, nor by the will of men, but by the 
power of the Holy Spirit. It is a holy fellow- 
ship, a glorious association. It has had its 
spots. All have been men of like passions with 
us. Some entered the ministry without a di- 
vine call ; others have been overborne by passion. 
Some concerning the faith have made shipwreck. 
Peter denied his Master and Judas betrayed Him. 
Men have disgraced themselves and brought re- 
proach upon the office; but it still lives and 
strengthens, because Christ lives with it, and 
has determined that it shall stand. 'He walks 
among the candlesticks and holds the stars in 
his right hand.' " ' It may be truly said that 
the preacher's life is the life of his preaching. 

Such being the vital relation of personality to 
preaching, the question is inevitable as to the kind 
of personality for the preacher. What are the 
personal elements that go to make the preacher ? 

The moral and spiritual qualities of the man are 
first. With these great gifts men of humble 
minds and insignificant presence have been 

1 Bishop Simpson, "Lectures on Preaching," p. 36. 



14 The Personality of the Preacher 

greatly blessed, and without them the most 
splendid natural endowment has been but a 
broken reed. 

The preacher to-day must have a sincere 
faith. " I believe, therefore I speak" has always 
been the law of preaching. It has never been 
more needful than in our age, — the question- 
ing, groping, stumbling age, that says with so 
many pathetic voices: "We have lost the way. 
Show us the Father and it sufficeth us." 

The preacher has no reason to speak unless 
he has found some truth precious and is willing 
to stake his life upon it. Guesses at truth are 
powerless, and so is an absolute, transcendent 
creed that has no humanity in it. It is not a 
question of how much a man believes but how 
completely. The preacher needs a personal 
trust that means the absolute committal of his 
life. This is the moral element of faith insep- 
arable from sincerity. Mr. Gilder has expressed 
it in strong verse : 

" If Jesus Christ is a man — 
And only a man — I say 
That of all mankind I cleave to Him, 
And to Him will I cleave alway. 

"If Jesus Christ is a God — 
And the only God — I swear 
I will follow Him thro' heaven and hell, 
The earth, the sea, and the air." 



The Personality of the Preacher 15 

The preacher needs a fine ethical sense, a 
moral earnestness that applies the truth to 
his own life and makes the man a missionary 
of truth. 

There is an inseparable relation between a 
sensitive conscience and a clear vision. Paul's 
open vision and masterful conviction were 
connected with his moral nature. He ever 
strove to have a conscience void of offence 
towards God and man, and so there was no 
moral blindness that obscured and perverted 
the conclusions of the intellect. He looked 
upon the Christ with " unveiled face." In 
spiritual things the knowing is subtly connected 
with willing. "Obedience is the organ of spir- 
itual knowledge." We must grow into many 
things. We know as we do and we know that 
we may enter into larger life. 

Moral earnestness is not only the condition of 
knowledge, but the basis of purpose and sus- 
tained enthusiasm to reach men. Possessed 
and controlled by the truth, the earnest soul 
cannot keep it in silence. To be right oneself is 
not enough. The heart is stirred at sight of 
the world given over to the worship of error. 
Truth is expansive and conquering. It must 
be expressed in service for men. It makes men 
witnesses, living epistles, advocates, mission- 
aries. 



16 The Personality of the Preacher 

"The noble hart, that harbours vertuous thought, 
And is with child of glorious great intent, 
Can never rest, untill it forth have brought 
The eternall brood of glorie excellent." 

— "Faerie Queene." 

A sympathetic nature should be the gift of the 
preacher; a power to feel with men and touch 
the cords of the human heart. He should count 
life the most interesting thing in the world and 
be able to love the individual man and not be 
governed by the vague sentiment of humanity. 
To enter into the experiences of another life, 
to read noble possibilities behind rough faces 
and hard conditions, gives to preaching that 
humanity which is its most attractive and 
persuasive quality. "The divinity of a sermon 
is in proportion to its humanity." Such a 
preacher interprets life and opens the heart and 
presents the Gospel as the divine complement 
to human need. "The more perfectly the 
knowing faculty and the loving faculty meet in 
any man, the more that man's life will become 
a transmitter and interpreter of truth to other 
men." 

The preacher needs to be a brave man who 
can face men and danger unflinchingly; whose 
faculties are quickened by the critical nature of 
opportunity; who loves men too truly ever to 
be afraid of them. Such a man is bent on 



The Personality of the Preacher 17 

mastery. He faces men with sublime indiffer- 
ence to their opinion, and yet never so sensitive 
to it. The very difficulties of public speech 
compel the discipline that conquers and call 
forth the qualities of leadership. He speaks 
the truth in love, but he speaks the truth at 
any cost. He is able to espouse an unpopular 
but righteous cause. Courage is the superb 
asset of the preacher. Without it men will not 
long respect his word. 

And hopefulness must cast its light over the 
preacher's word. It must be something more 
than a bright and happy spirit that refuses to 
see the shadows. It must be born of a faith 
that fully faces the disturbing facts of life and 
holds fast to the eternal wisdom and goodness — 
who believes that "the all-great is the all-loving 
too." An unconquerable optimism is the 
spirit that wins and helps men; a spirit that 
never complains or despairs, — that lives in 
the light of the coming victory. The preacher 
is to put heart into men; into men baffled 
and beaten by evil circumstances and the evil 
self, the hope of renewed and triumphant 
manhood. The man who never doubts that 
clouds will break has the power of inspiration 
and leadership. 

There are intellectual and physical gifts that 
go to make the preacher. The best powers of 



18 The Personality of the Preacher 

mind are required to perceive and express 
spiritual truth. Especially is there the call for 
the power of clear reasoning and the gift of 
imagination ; the power that is able to sift the 
true from the false, and present the evidence 
in convincing form; the faculty that perceives 
beyond the common horizon and is fired by the 
vision, and is able to portray to other minds, set 
forth in something like tangible form, the crea- 
tive and pictorial power of imagination. 

Not unimportant are the physical gifts of 
strong and sound body, and the speaking voice 
able to express the most subtle shades of thought 
and feeling and lay hold of the inmost self. 

Natural gifts are great helps, but they do not 
make the preacher. The spiritual and intellec- 
tual have often triumphed over the physical. A 
great message and a great purpose have often 
made common men instruments of power. 

It is a mistake to convey the impression that 
only peculiar natures are called to the prophetic 
office. There has been too much of the sign- 
seeking spirit in considering the call to the pulpit. 
It may be said of some men as it was said of 
Pascal, " There are decisive hours in which a 
man feels the germ of a new vocation bursting 
forth in him: a world all at once opens to his 
mind; and seized with a passion imperious 
as the very voice of God, he takes upon his 



The Personality of the Preacher 19 

conscience the engagement to pursue the work, 
which is henceforth to be the end of his life." 

A man may feel grateful if he have such an 
imperious passion moving him into the ministry. 
But let him not be distrustful and wavering, 
only the more humble and faithful, if his feelings 
be less masterful and his conviction less sure. 

The pulpit of our time needs a lofty ideal and 
heart-searching. Men need sooner or later a 
profound assurance that they are God's chosen 
servants and that God is speaking through them. 
Nothing less than this will keep a man in spring 
and joy and hope amid the trying necessities, 
the strenuous labors, and the deferred hopes of 
the years. And the man who has the capacity 
for the pulpit, and by his devotion to the highest 
things makes full proof of his ministry, will not 
be long without the inspirations, the heavenly 
sanctions, of his calling. 

"The times need strong, earnest men who 
believe. Such men can win a hearing: multi- 
tudes are waiting to hear them speak. But the 
times are critical times, and mere pretension 
or incapacity stands out confessed and con- 
demned as never before." — Rainsford. 



II 

THE ENRICHMENT OF PERSONALITY 



OUTLINE 

The Individuality of Men. 

The blessing to the pulpit of diversity of gifts. The dif- 
ference in effectiveness is in personality. 
The Limitation of the Individual Life. 

The lesson of experience. Men called to differing service 
in the pulpit. The true judgment of such service. 
Each man must be true to himself. The false con- 
ception of spiritual power. 
The Nature of Personality. 

The deepest and fullest self. Not fixed and unchanging. 
The resultant of what we have received and done. So 
personality can be enriched. Implied in Christian 
faith. 
Personality should be enriched in Spiritual Wisdom. 

Religious truth the sphere of the preacher. Not aca- 
demic, but truth in life. Spiritual wisdom. 
Personality should be enriched in Human Sympathy. 
Lack of humanity the vice of professionalism. 
Natural barriers to be overcome. 

Increased sympathy and increased power of mmistry. The 
highest influence connected with breadth of interests. 
The Conditions of Growth. 

Hunger for a larger life. Openness of mind. 
Fidelity to the daily task. Fellowship with Christ. 

References : 

King. "Rational Living." Chap. 1. 

Tucker. "The Making and the Unmaking of 

the Preacher." Lect. 2, 3. 
Horton. "Verbum Dei." Lect. 8. 



II 

THE ENRICHMENT OF PERSONALITY 

The art of living is the greatest of all arts. 
And because living is not large and noble, with 
wide interests and high thoughts, the influence 
of the pulpit, however devoted, may be narrow 
and feeble. A young preacher, sensitive and 
aspiring, shrinking from nothing that would 
make his ministry more effective, in comparing 
two classes of men in the ministry, — one impres- 
sive, the other tiresome, one dealing in vital 
realities, the other lacking the human touch, — 
asks the question: "Does all this come back 
to the idea of personality? And if it does, 
and if we stop there with the answer, is it 
not rather discouraging to the average man? 
especially if we assume — as is so often done — 
that personality is something that a man is born 
with and cannot help, and must get along with 
the best he can. Is there no road by which 
we can go a little farther back and discover, 
that though all may not be equally effective or 
impressive as speakers, still there is possibility 
for almost limitless growth?" 



24 The Enrichment of Personality 

The first thing to notice is the individuality 
of men. There are various gifts in the church. 
The diversity of gifts is one of the distinctions 
and blessings of the modern pulpit, as of the 
Apostolic church. 

Men are not run through the same mould, 
but have freedom to develop and express their 
peculiar natures. Modern individualism has 
its sins against the historic unity of the faith, 
against the social body of the church, but it 
has contributed much to the moral life of men 
and to the variety and comprehensiveness of 
the pulpit. The difference between men, in 
their attractiveness and effectiveness, is in 
personality. 

In personality is the limitation of the individ- 
ual life. A man cannot know all things and 
he cannot do all things. The first impression 
of life is its boundlessness. But physical wea- 
riness and mental and spiritual struggle bring 
the wiser mind. The strongest impression of 
the years is that they bring to each life cer- 
tain definite limits. The young Melanchthon 
needs but tell the story of salvation to win men, 
but the soberer Melanchthon knows that the old 
Adam is too much for the young Melanchthon. 
The pathos of life is the disproportion between 
the promise and the reality. The vision of the 
brain so far outruns the path of the feet ! To 



The Enrichment of Personality 25 

accept the fact of limited powers, to have a wise 
estimate of self, — and yet never to brook the 
continuance of weak-mindedness, still to be 
striving for the bright reward, though the world 
be adverse to desert, — this is to have the 
triumph of the Spirit. 

It must be understood that men are called 
to differing service in the pulpit. To judge all 
men by the same standards is sheerest folly. 
One man is an educator, and line upon line 
patiently instructs the people in the essential 
truth of the Gospel. Another man has the 
power of bringing knowledge to action. One 
man has the power to interpret truth. Another 
man reads the heart and makes its chords to 
vibrate. It is a wise providence over the church 
that two men of similar gifts are rarely in suc- 
cession in the same pulpit, — that the church 
may have a more symmetrical development. 

We cannot tell which type of preacher may do 
the more important service, which really ad- 
vances the Kingdom of God. The numerical 
estimates of a preacher's success, so common 
to-day, are largely futile, — the short-sighted 
vision of a materialistic spirit. Does a great 
congregation throng the church? Then the 
preacher is called great. Are many added to the 
church roll? Then the preacher is successful; 
he has the true Gospel message. Such standards 



26 The Enrichment of Personality 

are a subtle and fatal materialism that make 
men restless, and superficial, and unreal. Many 
a man has lost his finer ideal, dulled his con- 
science, and failed of the preacher he ought to 
have been, that he might score a success on 
the treasurer's books and the yearly report of 
his church. The quiet, country minister who 
trained an Alexander Duff into the faith and 
purpose of a missionary may have done more 
for the Kingdom of God than many a man who 
has had thousands hanging on his word. We 
need a spiritual vision of work as well as of the 
truth. 

Every man must see his own truth and do his 
own work, be true to himself and to the pattern 
in the mount. No man can live in compari- 
sons and try to be another without making a 
sorry failure of it. 

There is a false teaching of a limitless super- 
natural power at the command of any man 
willing to be used. If we set out our empty 
vessels, the Lord will fill them for His use. 
But the wonder is not in making a new vessel, 
but in keeping it full of the spirit of life. No 
absolute surrender to God's will, no complete 
emptying of self, will make John Smith into a 
Moody or Spurgeon or Phillips Brooks. The 
Spirit of God never violates a man's nature. 
He makes a better man and a larger man. He 



The Enrichment of Personality 27 

is the great empowering force of life ; but His 
working is not to be distinguished from a man's 
own spirit, and His most perfect working is in 
completest harmony with a man's best self. 
An unscriptural and irrational pietism may 
awaken expectations that are doomed to dis- 
appointment, and divert men from the happy 
and helpful use of personality. 

But what is personality ? It is an unfathomed 
mystery, but some things are clear. It is a 
man's deepest and fullest self; that which con- 
nects a man with humanity, yet separates him 
from every other member of it, — the fountain 
from which his life flows, the force by which his 
work is done. 

But a man's personality is not a fixed and 
unchanging element. At any moment it is the 
resultant of what he has received and done. 
Take such an example as the late Bishop Phillips 
Brooks, perhaps the richest personality in the his- 
tory of the modern pulpit, the strongest teacher 
of the fact that preaching is truth through per- 
sonality. He received his inheritance through 
generations of the best life of New England: 
on the one side the Brookses, men of large 
affairs and practical wisdom ; and on the other 
the Phillipses, men of spiritual vision and de- 
votion. He was trained by a group of notable 
teachers, and at a time great with interest over 



28 The Enrichment of Personality 

critical problems of thought and life. His 
achievement was familiarity with world-thought 
and identification with the widest interests of 
men. He had a life of growing thought, hu- 
manity, and service. Who can say whether he 
received most or gained most ? His personality 
was a mysterious gift, — the five talents, but 
he certainly gained other five talents. 

Life is not a house in which we gather and store 
apart from ourselves. It is a growth: all we 
do transformed into what we are. Man has the 
power of an endless growth. 

And this brings us to the heart of the ques- 
tion as to the use of personality. There is a way 
that the preacher can make the most of him- 
self. There is such a thing as the enrichment 
of personality. 

Christian faith implies the growth of per- 
sonality. Christianity is God's way of making 
a man, the largest and best possible man. It 
is a poor excuse to plead our nature for any 
defect that may be remedied, any weakness that 
may be outgrown. We believe in the power 
to make new creatures. The Gospel is full of 
commands and inspirations to growth. Our 
duty is always ahead of us, not measured by 
what we are, but by what we may become by 
the spirit of obedience. It is a sin to be a dwarf 
when a man might be a giant. 



The Enrichment of Personality 29 

In what way shall we enrich our personality ? 
In what way shall the preacher try to grow ? 

The preacher should aim to grow especially in 
spiritual wisdom and in human sympathy. 

Christ's prayer for the disciples is to be the 
preacher's desire and standard. " Sanctify them 
in the truth." He is to feel himself a dedicated 
spirit, set apart in the truth. The word of 
redemption is to be his realm of pursuit, of 
appropriation, of expression. What nature is 
to the scientist — and more — religious truth is 
to be to the preacher. He is to live in it and for 
it. To be the increasing master of the great 
subjects of religion is to be his ambition, his 
consecrated purpose. He is a teacher and so 
should know these things. He stands as an 
expert in the Gospel of redemption, and his 
word will have authority as the people believe in 
the sincerity and thoroughness of his knowledge. 
Preaching is not a question of popular eloquence, 
— many a false prophet has had a precocious 
gift of speech, and many a demagogue has cap- 
tured an audience, — it is a question of having 
a word of God. 

For deep in the heart of the age is the re- 
ligious question, which no other interest, 
however absorbing, can wholly eradicate or 
suppress. It comes out in most unexpected 
ways and places. It is the motive of many a 



30 The Enrichment of Personality 

modern story. It comes out in the social circle 
and speaks in the discussion of public interests. 
Is there a purpose of good controlling the forces 
of nature and of human life; is "the all-great 
the all-loving too"; is sin misfortune or guilt, 
to be forgotten or to be forgiven ; can a broken 
life be renewed; is there an immortal life? 
The man who can throw light upon these ques- 
tions, who can speak with authority upon them, 
is the spiritual teacher of men, the messenger 
of God to them. 

This knowledge must not be academic. The 
pursuit of truth for its own sake is a noble ideal, 
but it must always be remembered that re- 
ligious truth differs from scientific in this : that 
it is inseparable from life ; it can be known and 
expressed only in life. The subtlest powers of 
spiritual perception are not in the intellect, 
but in the heart and conscience. One simple 
heart cry of human need — "What shall I do?" 
— may penetrate farther into the mystery of 
Godliness than the profoundest reason. The 
things of the Spirit are spiritually discerned. 
The promise is that when the heart turns to 
the Lord, the veil shall be removed. 

Every realm of knowledge has its own con- 
ditions for entrance, the key that unlocks its 
treasures. And a pure heart, the single eye 
that chooses and serves the Kingdom of God as 



The Enrichment of Personality 31 

the supreme good, is the unalterable law of 
spiritual knowledge. We are to welcome e very- 
light upon the history of the Gospel, test the 
facts of redemption by every proper analysis; 
but remember that the life that we bring to 
this examination and what we are willing to 
do with the results must also enter into any 
final and truthful conclusion. No question of 
religion then can be purely academic. It is 
important for the preacher to know what the 
universities are doing, but quite as important 
to know what the servants of Christ are doing 
in the heart of dense cities or of dark continents, 
and what the Gospel can do to transform and 
develop human life. 

"Let knowledge grow from more to more, 
But more of reverence in us dwell ; 
That mind and soul according well, 
May make one music as before, 
But vaster." 

If the personality of the preacher is to be 
enriched, knowledge must be transformed by 
experience into spiritual wisdom. It must help 
the preacher to live and so help others to live. 
The growth must be in "the knowledge and the 
grace of Christ/' — one and inseparable. The 
outcome must be a gracious life, a witness of the 
power of truth and so a messenger, a transmitter 
of the power of truth to other lives. 



32 The Enrichment of Personality 

And the preacher's personality should be en- 
riched in human sympathy. Growth in spiritual 
wisdom implies growth in love, in the purpose 
of good to other lives. With the vision of truth 
must be a growing sense of the worth of man, not 
a vague enthusiasm for humanity, but a growing 
interest in the individual and particular man. 
It is easy to make an idolatry of books and ideas 
and forget and deny the ties of humanity. The 
man cannot grow if the heart shrivels. We may 
have all knowledge, yet without love we are 
nothing. The vice of professionalism is its 
lack of genuine humanity, failure to put oneself 
in the place of the other man and so interpret 
and minister to life. The best growth of the 
preacher is in human-heart edness. 

On every side there are natural and artificial 
barriers to be overcome. The preacher often 
finds himself in a world indifferent or hostile to 
him and to his message. Social pride ignores 
him as an important factor in life. Selfishness, 
that fears that its gains or pleasures may be 
checked by his message, turns its back. Men 
of thought and men of affairs may relegate him 
to a minor place in the life of the world. There 
are men that are antipathetic and forces that 
oppose. Many a minister finds himself in an 
ever narrowing world of interests and sympa- 
thies. Instead of a larger humanity and a 



The Enrichment of Personality 33 

larger world of relations and influence, he finds 
himself the victim of his own tastes, limited by 
his likes and dislikes, shut in by the hard lines 
of his own failures in great-heart edness. The 
preacher grows through a great purpose to be 
a brother man. So-called intellectual privilege 
may be simply a restriction upon manhood. 
There can be no gain through intellectual ex- 
clusiveness. Separation from men may make 
the mind itself a point of dull stagnation. 

" I used to think," writes Hawthorne, " I could 
imagine all passions, all feelings, and states of 
the heart and mind, but how little did I know ! 
Indeed, we are but shadows; we are not en- 
dowed with real life; and all that seems most 
real about us is but the thinnest substance of 
a dream, — till the heart be touched. That 
touch creates us — then we begin to be — 
thereby we are beings of reality, and inheritors 
of eternity." * 

The enrichment of life through human sym- 
pathies means increasing power to help. The 
preacher loves men better, knows men better, 
serves men better. The larger the life, the more 
many-sided, the more the ways by which 
God's voice may be heard and that message 
transmitted to other lives. 

" If one cares to exert the highest influence, — 

1 Woodberry, "Hawthorne," p. 89. 

D 



34 The Enrichment of Personality 

not merely to dominate another's choices, — 
he must seek such an influence as the other shall 
be able to recognize as simply the demand of 
his own sanest and best self. That influence is 
possible only to the man who has sufficient 
breadth of interests to enter into another's life 
with understanding, respect, and sympathy." 1 

There are tides in the life of a man. Some 
powers will necessarily decline. But the heart 
need never dry up. It should be a perennial 
fountain of sweet waters. One cannot measure 
the possible growth in spiritual life and influence. 

"The best is yet to be, 
The last of life, for which the first was made. ,, 

To be a great-heart, full of tenderness and 
compassion, to speak out of a genuine interest 
and fellow-feeling, helps one to stand in Christ's 
place and give his pleading, beseeching, recon- 
ciling word. 

Such a preacher is beautifully described by 
Jean Ingelow in "Brothers and a Sermon": 

"I have heard many speak, but this one man — 
So anxious not to go to heaven alone — 
This one man I remember, and his look, 
Till twilight overshadowed him. He ceased, 
And out in darkness with the fisherfolk 
We passed and stumbled over mounds of moss, 

1 King, "Rational Living," p. 11. 



The Enrichment of Personality 35 

And heard, but did not see the passing beck. 
Oh, graceless heart, would that it could regain 
From the dim storehouse of sensations past, 
The impress full of tender awe, that night, 
Which fell on me. It was as if the Christ 
Had been drawn down from heaven to track us home, 
And any of the footsteps following us 
Might have been His." 

How shall the preacher grow in the direction 
that has been indicated? What can we do to 
enrich our personality in spiritual wisdom and 
human sympathy? The first condition of 
growth is the hunger for a larger life. The 
growing preacher must have a holy discontent. 
Grateful he should be for all gifts and training, 
free from morbid introspection and envious 
murmuring, trusting the good hand of the 
Father; but never settling down into a low 
content. No man has a right to say, I have 
done my best, I have attained. Paul did not say 
that after thirty years of great life. He still 
forgot that which was behind and pressed tow- 
ard the mark. The preacher often suffers from 
lack of honest criticism. He suffers from aloof- 
ness, says a keen critic in a recent Scribner's, 
and so from lack of that honest criticism which 
has to do with his life and the life of his message. 
Petty criticism of dress and manner he may 
sometimes get, but rarely that thoroughgoing 



36 The Enrichment of Personality 

judgment of character and message that has to 
do with his mission. A smug self-satisfaction 
is fatal to growth. A man must be beaten out 
of all self-conceit with himself before he can be 
largely used of God. Mr. Hiram Powers was 
once asked by a friend, "Mr. Powers, what is 
your best work?" "Oh ! the one I'm going to 
do next," was the happy answer of the artist. 
And that is the true spirit of the Christian 
preacher. The old failures are to be the scars 
of growth ; the old successes are to be the steps 
of progress. 

Enlargement of life is to be gained by culti- 
vating openness of mind. Some men simply 
stiffen by the years. 

"They are the comfortable moles, 
Who let the have been be 
The limits of the good and true." 

No revealing and creative experience is pos- 
sible for them, no new quickening. They have 
had the sensations and tested the discoveries 
and settled down into the comfortable seat of 
tradition. 

"And now a flower is just a flower: 
Man, bird, beast, are but beast, bird, man, — 
Simply themselves, uncinct by dower 
Of dyes which, when life's day began, 
Round each in glory ran." 



The Enrichment of Personality 37 

There is the inevitable tendency to fixedness 
of calling. Every vocation is rightly held by 
its great traditions. But the danger is, that 
what we have done becomes the ruts of our 
doing, and like all ruts, they narrow as they 
grow deeper. A modern English novelist de- 
scribes a minister with "a closed mind," and 
the process is so unconscious, it goes on by all 
the laws of habit, that men stand in a new world 
deaf and dumb as to that which is moulding the 
habits and forming the ideals of multitudes of 
their fellow-men. 

There must be flexibility of mind, if there is 
to be growth ; the childlike spirit of eager, won- 
dering, reverent search. 

Growth is gained by fidelity to the daily task. 
To hold one's self sacredly to the hours of study, 
to bend mind and heart to it as the supreme 
task; to maintain the quiet of the soul, un- 
broken by the rush and clamor of material 
things; to meditate upon life and truth until 
the way shall be light and duty clear; to have 
the moments of chosen and conscious fellowship 
with God, spirit meeting with spirit; to prac- 
tise the ways of increasing friendship and ser- 
vice, — these common paths of duty are the paths 
of the larger life. In such work the noblest 
powers are engaged, and the noblest growth 
attained. He that is willing to walk in the way 



38 The Enrichment of Personality 

of the common Christian tasks will find the 
path mounting to the points of vision and 
inspiration. 

But chiefest of all, the enlargement of man- 
hood is to be gained by fellowship with Christ. 
It was said of the early preaching of Peter and 
John that the people marvelled: "And they 
took knowledge of them that they had been 
with Jesus." And this relation has been true 
ever since. The noblest manhood is to be found 
by commerce with the thought and will and love 
of the perfect life. Christ's most distinguishing 
work is "the discovery and reintegration of 
broken or undeveloped lives and their upbuild- 
ing into strength and effectiveness.' ' 

The modern pulpit calls for a large life; and 
there is a rich, full manhood possible for any 
man who honestly recognizes his nature and 
its limitations, and makes a consecrated use of 
the divine means of growth. 



Ill 

THE PHYSICAL LIFE OF THE PREACHER 



OUTLINE 

The Body to be honored as a worthy part of man. 
Reasons for a false asceticism in the ministry. 
The harmony of the physical and spiritual. 
The Body to be honored as the servant of the soul. 
The basis of the mental and the spiritual. 
The physical expression of the man. 
A sound body and the best personal influence. 
The relation of health to the message. 
The physical strength and the best work. 
Reciprocal relation of health and work. 
Health and the voice. 

The special demand of the age upon strength. 
How shall the Physical Strength of the Preacher be preserved ? 
The proper diet — a matter of discipline. 
The proper sleep — sleep and temperament. 
Exercise : its time, place, and character. 

The best exercise in the open air and in play. The 
legitimate functions of play. 
A plea for disciplined vitality in the Preacher. 

References : 

Blaikie. "How to get Strong." 
King. "Rational Living." Chap. 4-6. 
Beecher. "Yale Lectures," Vol. I, Chap. 8. 
Hall. "Qualifications for Ministerial Power." 
Chap. 2. 



40 



Ill 

THE PHYSICAL LIFE OF THE PREACHER 

Charles Simeon of Cambridge University 
used to say to the young men preparing for the 
ministry, that the first requisite of good, hard 
reading was that they should take good care 
of the third milestone out of Cambridge. The 
preacher is called by virtue of the completeness 
of his manhood. This means that he is to be 
a man in physical life. We are to honor the 
body as a worthy part of us, to be trained and 
used as truly as the mind. 

What is the Christian conception of the man ? 
It is not a thin and contracted and wasted 
frame, a Simeon Stylites, passionless as a burnt- 
out volcano; it is the Christian athlete rather, 
with muscular limbs and well-rounded chest, 
and every physical faculty developed to its 
utmost efficiency. 

"Let us not always say, 
Spite of this flesh to-day 

I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole ! 
As the bird wings and sings, 
Let us cry, ' All good things 

Are ours; nor soul helps flesh more now than flesh 
helps soul.' " 

41 



42 The Physical Life of the Preacher 

There has been at times a contempt for the 
body, an effort to ignore it and suppress it as 
though it were an enemy of spiritual life. 

Literalism has played the mischief with the 
Scriptures and fastened misconceptions and per- 
versions of truth upon the doctrines and practice 
of generations of the church. The demands of 
Christ "to deny self and take up the cross and 
follow Him," "to pluck out the eye if it offend, 
to cut off the hand or the foot if it cause one to 
stumble," have been interpreted as casting re- 
flections upon the physical life. Paul's famous 
duel between the flesh and the spirit, his strenu- 
ous figure of keeping the body under, were in- 
terpreted in the light of the old dualism of the 
East, as fixing the seat of sin in the physical life 
and not solely in the evil desire of the heart. 

Monasticism came, child of protest to the 
universal insecurity and sensualism of the Old 
World, and of the Oriental dualism of good and 
evil, of spirit and matter. No doubt in the 
providence of God asceticism had its work to do. 
We do not reach the whole truth at a bound, but 
by painful and irregular steps. We say that 
the world had to be taught first the worth of 
the spirit, — the soul of man must be found ; 
and the truth was taught by emphasizing the 
spirit at the expense of the body. 

We have attained the fuller scripture view 



The Physical Life of the Preacher 43 

that the body is something sacred as inseparable 
now from the spirit, as a part of the personality. 
It is the temple of God, and whoever destroys 
it "him shall God destroy." But the ascetic 
idea is hard to banish from the religious life. A 
vigorous body is still associated with the grosser 
temptations. 

In a recent biography of Channing, one reads 
concerning his life as a young teacher in Rich- 
mond, Va., '"I spent a year and a half there, 
and perhaps the most eventful of my life. I 
lived alone, too poor to buy books, spending my 
days and nights in an outbuilding, with no one 
beneath my room, except during the hours of 
school keeping. There I toiled as I have never 
done since, for gradually my body sank under 
the unremitting exertion. With not a human 
being to whom I could communicate my deepest 
thoughts and feelings, and shrinking from com- 
mon society, I passed through intellectual and 
moral conflicts of heart and mind so absorbing 
as often to banish sleep, and to destroy almost 
wholly the power of digestion. I was worn 
well-nigh to a skeleton. Yet I look back upon 
those days of loneliness and frequent gloom 
with thankfulness. If I ever struggled with my 
whole soul for purity, truth, and goodness, it 
was there. Then, amidst sore trials, the great 
question, I trust, was settled within me, whether 



44 The Physical Life of the Preacher 

I would be the victim of passion, the world, or 
the free child and servant of God. 

"'In a licentious and intemperate city, one 
spirit was preparing at least, in silence and lone- 
liness, to toil not wholly in vain for truth and 
holiness.'" 1 

His biographer wisely comments on this let- 
ter: "Much beside the unremitting study and 
seclusion contributed to Channing's physical 
misery and the depression of his spirits. It 
would have been better for him if his opinion 
that 'the wants of the body are few/ 'mind, 
mind, requires all our care/ had been a mere 
opinion. Not only did he remain at his books 
until two or three o'clock in the morning, and 
often until the daylight broke, but he made 
harsh experiments in living, went insufficiently 
clothed, without an overcoat in winter weather, 
sleeping upon a bare floor in a cold room, eating 
very little, and that what he did not like. He 
fancied he was curbing the animal nature, when 
the temptations that assailed him were the 
spawn of his ascetic glooms. He thought that 
he was hardening himself, when he was making 
himself frail and pervious to every wind that 
blew." 2 

It is not true, as we well know, that the less 

1 Chadwick, "Life of Charming," p. 52. 
3 Ibid., p. 53. 



The Physical Life of the Preacher 45 

the body the more spirit. Charming was him- 
self well cured of his conceit that he must build 
his spiritual temple on the ruins of his body. 

"This frame, so weak, sharp sickness' hue, 
And this pale cheek God loves in you," 

was no longer his misconception, and he strug- 
gled bravely to free himself from the evil habits 
of his early years. 

When men like John Hall and Phillips 
Brooks and Dwight L. Moody, physical giants, 
become as well known for their piety and spirit- 
ual power, we know that body and spirit are 
not opposing terms. The man who has a strong, 
wholesome physical life may thank God for it 
as one of His good gifts. 

The body is to be honored as the servant of 
the soul, the instrument of the immortal spirit 
within. It is the basis of the mental and spirit- 
ual life. It is the physical expression of the 
man ; it bears a subtle and vital relation to the 
soul life. In some sense — we cannot say how 
far — the visions of the mind, the spiritual states 
of the soul, will be determined by the conditions 
of the physical life. 

F. W. Robertson thus comments on God's 
cure of Elijah's dejection by giving food, rest, 
and exercise: " Persons come to the ministers 
of God in seasons of despondency ; they pervert 



46 The Physical Life of the Preacher 

with marvellous ingenuity all the consolation 
which is given them, turning wholesome food 
into poison. Then we perceive the wisdom of 
God's simple, homely treatment of Elijah, and 
discover that there are spiritual cases for the 
physician rather than for the divine." 

And Henry Ward Beecher speaks of health 
as the sweetener of work. " There is no pleasure 
in the world comparable to that which a man 
has who habitually stands before an audience 
with an errand of truth, which he feels in every 
corner of his soul, and in every fibre of his body, 
and to whom the Lord gives liberty of utterance. 
But I am conscious how largely the physical 
element of healthfulness enters into this ex- 
perience. When I am depressed in body and 
heavy in mind I do not get it. You cannot ex- 
pect either these exceptional, higher consum- 
mations, or the strong, steady flow of a joyful 
relish for your work, unless you cultivate a 
robust and healthful manhood." 1 

The body, then, is to be kept pure and sound, 
and well trained as the servant of the soul, as 
the means of its expression and influence. 

Is not the best personal influence in some way 
connected with a sound body ? Beautiful lives 
will at once be called to mind that are limited 
and crippled by weakness and suffering. Pain 

1 Beecher, "Yale Lectures," Vol. I, p. 192. 



The Physical Life of the Preacher 47 

may be a minister of beauty. But such min- 
istry is in quiet spheres, — the home, the circle 
of loved friends; not in the public places of 
society and the church. Then the weak lean 
upon the strong, and the men who bear the 
burdens long, without being themselves crushed 
by them, — the burden of cares and sorrows 
and sins, — must have some strength of phys- 
ical life to match and support their moral power. 
It was upon the great physical and moral frame 
of a Lincoln that God placed the burdens of a 
nation. 

It is certain that men are attracted by a sound 
body, by. a wholesome physical life, and this we 
should seek and cultivate as a means of personal 
influence. The first impression of ourselves and 
of our truth is made through the physical life, 
and to have that impression pleasant and attrac- 
tive cannot be beneath the attention of a Chris- 
tian minister. Pity is the last thing that a 
manly man wishes to have. Sympathy he ought 
to receive — to be glad to receive — with a 
humble heart, if he needs sympathy in sickness 
and trials. But pity is another matter. No 
man would be pitied for his physical weakness 
if he has the soul of a man; and so, if limited 
in any physical way, he tries to cover it up and 
make people forget it. Pity is too closely allied 
with contempt. And the danger is, that people 



48 The Physical Life of the Preacher 

will lose respect for the man who is ever the 
object of their pity. 

There is natural leadership in a wholesome 
physical life. The fact that young Saul had an 
attractive person and stood head and shoulders 
above the people pointed to his natural king- 
ship over men. The body has not only to do 
with personal influence among men, but with 
the public work of the preacher. 

Our teachings need the color of health. The 
stomach has more to do than we think with the 
brain. The man who has ever had a touch of 
genuine dyspepsia knows how sombre the very 
landscape seems. More than one man has mis- 
taken some disorder of his stomach for religious 
feeling. Shrewd old Lyman Beecher always in- 
quired first about the health, if one came to him 
anxious about his soul. 

" Untold spiritual treasure is slipping from our 
hands simply because we forget that religious 
states, as well as other states of mind, stand in 
a reciprocal relation with states of the brain and 
nervous system." 1 

Browning somewhere has a line about a man 
who awakes in the morning with the colic being 
unfit for empire. "The secret of many a dull, 
futile sermon is the depressed vitality of the 
minister." The morbid sensitiveness of a Rob- 

1 Coe, "The Spiritual Life," p. 86. 



The Physical Life of the Preacher 49 

ertson, the beneficent sanity of a Phillips Brooks, 
had foundation in the physical manhood of each. 

There is vital relation between health and 
thought. "Men in a high state of health in- 
variably see more sharply the truth that they 
are after. They see its relations and its fitness. 
They have a sense of direction, combination, 
and of the power of relations of truth to emo- 
tion. The old-fashioned way of preparing a 
sermon was when a man sat down with his pipe, 
and smoked and thought as he called it, and 
after one, or two, or three hours, — his wife 
saying to everybody in the meantime, 'Dear 
man, he is upstairs studying ; he has to study so 
hard!' — in which he has been in a muggy, 
fumbling state of mind, he at last comes out 
with the product of it for the pulpit. It is like 
unleavened bread, doughy, dumpy, and heavy, 
— hard to eat and harder to digest. There has 
been nothing put in it to vitalize it. But when 
a man is in a perfect state of health, no matter 
where he goes, he is sensitive to social influence, 
and to social wants. He discovers men's neces- 
sities instinctively. He is very quick to choose 
the instruments by which to minister to those 
necessities, so that when he goes to his study he 
has something to do, and he knows what it is." * 

We are to cheer and uplift men by our pulpit 
1 Beecher, " Yale Lectures," Vol. I, p. 185. 



50 The Physical Life of the Preacher 

speech. It is the soundest philosophy of preach- 
ing. "The failure of the pulpit is marked in 
respect to the mission of comfort/' says Austin 
Phelps in "Men and Books." "If there is one 
thing more obvious than another, in the general 
strain of Apostolic preaching, it is the prepon- 
derance of words of encouragement over those of 
reproof and commination. In no other thing 
did inspired preachers disclose their inspired 
knowledge of human conditions more clearly. 
The world of to-day needs the same adaptation 
of the pulpit to its wants. We preach to a suf- 
fering and struggling humanity. Tempted men 
and sorrowing women are our hearers. Never 
is a sermon preached, but to some hearers who 
are carrying a load of secret grief. 

" It is vastly easier to denounce secret sin than 
to cheer struggling virtue. Look over any large 
concourse of Christian worshippers, number the 
anxious and stern faces among them, — faces of 
men and women who are in the thick of life's 
conflict. Where shall the cunning hand be 
found to reach out and keep from falling these 
weary ones? Very early in life does the great 
struggle of probation begin. The buoyant joy 
of youth is short-lived. 

"Shades of the prison-house begin to close 
upon the growing boy. With this one feature of 
human experience, probation, the mission of the 



The Physical Life of the Preacher 51 

pulpit has chiefly to do. Above all other things, 
therefore, in the clerical character, this world 
craves the power of helpfulness. The Master 
walking on the sea in the night, and stretching 
forth his hand to the sinking Peter, is the emblem 
of that which the Christian preacher must be 
in every age, if he would speak to real conditions 
and minister to exigent necessities." * 

And the point of the argument is simply this : 
the man of sound body, with the vigor of health 
in his veins, whose feelings and views are not 
colored by weakness and disease, is most likely 
to give the cheering, uplifting message of the 
Gospel. 

Health is demanded for the best work. There 
is a buoyancy and energy in a full life that must 
find expression. It will not need to be driven 
by the lash of necessity or a strenuous will, but 
will spring to its work as a privilege, a thing of 
joy. The best work is always the outflow of a 
tireless energy. We must love our work if it is 
to be the noble work we desire. 

And this is closely connected with our physical 
life. However lofty the purpose and pure the 
love, a weak and sickly body will make the work 
drag heavily. The boy must play if he is a well 
boy. The physical life must find an outlet, and 
so he runs and shouts in the mere exuberant joy 

1 Austin Phelps, "Men and Books," p. 30. 



52 The Physical Life of the Preacher 

of life. Now a strong and well man has some 
such feeling as this. Take a man who is worn 
out with his work. He cannot sleep; he cares 
nothing for his food. He leaves his business, 
goes where care is shut out; gives himself to 
rest and recreation, sleeps and eats, and in a 
week he will say, — I feel like a boy again. 
Now, it is this fulness of physical life, this abound- 
ing vitality, that the minister should seek to pre- 
serve, that service may not be drudgery but a 
life-giving expression. 

And it should be noted here that the joy of 
work has a corresponding effect on the physical 
life. "It literally makes us live more, and so 
gives a deeper sense of all other life. For this 
very reason it helps directly to convictions which 
make volitions easy. As Keats puts it, 'Axioms 
are not axioms until they have been felt upon 
our pulses/ We are made for joy — body and 
mind ; our very constitution proclaims it. Pain 
is not a good in itself ; and unnecessary depres- 
sion and needless worry only lessen our power 
for work, and, what is more, weaken our power 
to will. The relation is close and simple. Joy 
directly increases our vitality. Greater vitality 
gives greater sense of reality. This means 
stronger convictions. Of convictions purposes 
are born. And conviction and purpose make 
influence certain. The spiritual life may not 



The Physical Life of the Preacher 53 

safely ignore these plain facts. Joy has its 
very distinct mission and place in the spiritual 
life. Are not Christian ministers too prone to 
forget that the message they are set to bring 
is a Gospel — good news ? An ultimate message 
of hope is essential to the strongest living." 1 

As to the fulness of the physical life, take the 
matter of the voice alone. It has a physical 
quality as truly as it is the index of the soul. 
Health or disease sounds in its tones. The 
preacher needs above all men a sound and 
strong body, that the voice may have what 
Henry Ward Beecher called the "thrust power," 
— conveying the sense of power, matching the 
truth with the sound, and pressing it home upon 
us. 

"Who are the speakers that move the crowd? 
They are the men of great vitality and recupera- 
tive power. They are men who, while they have 
a sufficient thought-power to create all the 
material needed, have preeminently the ex- 
plosive power by which they can thrust their 
materials out at men. They are catapults, and 
men go down before them. Of course, you will 
find men now and then, thin and shrivelled 
voiced, who are popular speakers. Sometimes 
men are organized with a compact nervous 
temperament and are slender framed, while 
1 King, "Rational Living," p. 138. 



54 The Physical Life of the Preacher 

they have a certain concentrated earnestness, 
and in narrow lines they move with great in- 
tensity. John Randolph was such a man." * 

Then the special demands upon the pulpit are 
met only by a great expenditure of physical 
life. The changed conditions of life in our 
country make physical manhood an essential 
for large success. And it is true in no sphere 
as in the pulpit, where vivacity of manner and 
range and volume of voice, physical qualities, 
are so instrumental in impressing the truth. A 
thin, piping tone, a lassitude of manner indi- 
cating low vitality, are almost powerless in 
swaying the minds of men. 

"In successful public speaking the mind 
becomes abnormally awake, every nerve is 
stretched to its utmost, and an added strain is 
laid upon the heart. Only a man strong in 
body can bear a load so heavy through a term 
of years. First the stomach succumbs, then 
the nerves fail, then the voice grows flabby, the 
sword with which the preacher must do his work 
thus losing its edge, and his power over a con- 
gregation being hopelessly broken." 2 

There is not too much scholarship in our 
seminaries, but less learning would be safer 
than less bodily exercise. When John Angell 

1 Beecher, " Yale Lectures," Vol. I, p. 187. 

2 Jefferson, "The Minister as Prophet," p. 44. 






The Physical Life of the Preacher 55 

James, the predecessor at Birmingham of Dr. 
Dale, finished his college course, "he was re- 
markable for nothing but impetuosity, breadth 
of chest, and such strongly developed pugilistic 
tendencies as to warrant the blunt estimate of 
his character, — ' the thick-headed fool is fit for 
nothing but fighting.' " And yet he became 
one of the noblest and most efficient ministers 
of the Word in the nineteenth century. Edu- 
cation with him had not been a process of 
emasculation, and he swept men with a mag- 
nificent physical earnestness. 

It ought to be said that there has been a great 
improvement in the care and training of the 
body in the last twenty years. A college gym- 
nasium is no longer considered a mere ornament, 
as useless as a zoological garden, but physical 
training has taken its place beside mental and 
moral, and outdoor sports have added the zest 
of the mind to the exercise of the body. "The 
ideal student," in the words of President Eliot 
of Harvard, "has been transformed from a 
stooping, weak, and sickly youth, into one well- 
formed, robust, and healthy." The figure of 
the young college man at the World's Fair, 
Chicago, formed from the measurements of ten 
years by Dr. Sargent of Harvard Gymnasium, 
is not unworthy to be put beside the figure of 
the Apollo Belvedere. 



56 The Physical Life of the Preacher 

The practical question is, How shall a man 
keep and use his physical strength in the min- 
istry? Three things have to do with our 
health and strength, viz.: food, sleep, and 
exercise. 

Every man should judge for himself what 
kind and quantity of food he should take, and 
if need be, this judgment should be formed 
with the help of the wisest physician. It is a 
matter of discipline, remember, not what may 
please the palate for the moment, but what will 
give the greatest strength for service. 

Then, — sleep, and enough of it. But the 
time will vary with the temperament. Many 
a man is working into the late hours of the 
night, burning the candle at both ends, deceiv- 
ing himself with the idea that he is a great 
worker, when, by lack of system, he pushes into 
the night what could just as well have been 
accomplished by daylight, with ordinary devo- 
tion. President Mark Hopkins gave as the 
secret of his sturdy health and great power even 
into old age, that he always slept when he was 
tired. 

"The truth is, you secretly despise the details 
of living. You pay no regard to the manage- 
ment of yourself. You fancy it is a noble 
Spartan virtue to neglect your body; and so, 
without being an ascetic, you just go on care- 



The Physical Life of the Preacher 57 

lessly, casually, while the mechanism is con- 
tinually running down through sheer inatten- 
tion. For instance, you were confessing to me 
how rarely you keep any sort of rule as to bed- 
time, so that sleep grows shy of such an erratic 
wooer, and you work next day, jaded and de- 
pressed. We should hear of fewer nervous 
breakdowns, if men understood that regular 
sleep is as important as regular food. As to 
exercise, I have heard you plead the hoary old 
excuse, you are too busy. That may be quite 
true, but it is quite invalid. You have no 
business to be so busy. You will double your 
real efficiency when you cancel half your small 
engagements. You are a Christian specialist, 
and on the very lowest ground you cheapen 
your office, as well as dissipate your energy, by 
this endless entanglement in petty local affairs; 
it is fatal to the mental aloofness and spiritual 
detachment which your proper work requires." ' 

And what shall we do for exercise ? 

What are the requisites for the best physical 
training? A set time, a fixed amount, in the 
open air, and of a kind that shall engage the 
mind as well as the body. A minister may need 
to content himself for most of the time with 
work in his garden, caring for his horse or cow, 
walking or riding in his parish work. These are 
1 "The Clerical Life," p. 142. 



58 The Physical Life of the Preacher 

all good, but not the best. The best exercise 
is that which engages the mind as well as the 
body; not the mind in serious thought, but in 
exciting and absorbing play. If a man cannot 
have a half hour a day in gymnasium, or on 
tennis court, or in some other play, then let him 
devote a whole day as often as once a month to 
recreation. The minister is to be pitied who 
does not know how to recreate, who is not fond 
of some out-of-door sport. 

We must not forget the two very simple and 
primal laws of our nature, the law of play as the 
means of physical growth, and the law of play 
as the means of repairing the wastes of work. 
Play is no less divine than work. We see this 
in the child. The boy that plays the best, other 
things equal, makes the best man. And when 
manhood is reached, the mission of play is not 
ended. It exercises the faculties untouched by 
toil, and so helps to harmonious development. 
By the enjoyable use of other powers, it enables 
the toiler to rest those weary with too constant 
use. Play keeps men from becoming the thing 
they do. It trains the weak and flabby muscle 
into manly strength and says to work, "You 
shall not take all the freshness and buoyancy 
out of life, and turn the human form divine 
into a mere thinking machine." 

Play has a legitimate function in the life of 



The Physical Life of the Preacher 59 

the man as the child. A great blessing would it 
be if the world recognized this fact and resorted 
to recreation intelligently and conscientiously, 
and forever exploded the idea that play is in- 
consistent with Christian devotion and worldly 
thrift and manly dignity. 

What a delight has he who can turn from the 
weariness of books to the mental rest and 
physical action of true recreation ! 

"Up, up ! my friend, and quit your books, 
Or surely you'll grow double ; 
Up, up ! my friend, and clear your looks ; 
Why all this toil and trouble ? 

"The sun above the mountain's head, 
A freshening lustre mellow, 
Through all the long green field has spread 
His first sweet evening yellow. 

" Books ! 'tis a dull and endless strife : 
Come, hear the woodland Linnet, 
How sweet his music ! on my life, 
There's more of wisdom in it. 

"And hark ! how blithe the throstle sings ! 
He, too, is no mean preacher : 
Come forth into the light of things, 
Let Nature be your teacher. 

" She has a world of ready wealth, 
Our minds and hearts to bless — 
Spontaneous wisdom, breathed by health, 
Truth breathed by cheerfulness. 



60 The Physical Life of the Preacher 

"One impulse from a vernal wood, 
May teach you more of man, 
Of moral evil and of good, 
Than all the sages can. 

"Enough of science and of art; 
Close up those barren leaves ; 
Come forth, and bring with you a heart 
That watches and receives." * 

Dr. John Brown, the genial Scotch essayist, 
deals with the case of the preacher who thinks 
himself too busy and earnest to indulge in 
physical exercise and recreation: "All very 
well, say you, ' it is easy speaking and saying — 
"Take it easy," but if the pot's on the fire it 
maun bile.' It must, but you needn't poke up 
the fire forever ; and you may now and then set 
the kettle on the hob and let it sing, instead of 
leaving it to burn its bottom out." 2 

We cannot have bodies too sound and strong 
for our work. We shall need every particle of 
disciplined vitality for the strenuous activity 
demanded of the minister in this age and land, 
and for the risks and exposures of foreign lands. 
In every public service of the minister the 
physical life tells, and there are certain times of 
strain and exposure, of tremendous responsi- 
bility, when the burdens of many lives are put 

1 Arnold's Wordsworth, "The Tables Turned," p. 137. 

2 " Spare Hours," Vol. 2, page 146. 



The Physical Life of the Preacher 61 

upon him, that only a life with these resources 
of strength can endure the strain. We may re- 
joice that in any work, or exercise, or recreation 
that becomes a man, we may have a part. The 
laws of health, of food and rest and exercise, 
are as much God's laws as the Decalogue and 
the Sermon on the Mount. Nature's laws are 
God's laws. 

"And out of darkness came the hands 
That reach thro' nature, moulding men." 

Let us not fail because we lack the courage or 
are too self-indulgent to enter upon such a 
course of life as a true Christian manliness 
requires. 

"No special gifts can absorb a minister from 
the elementary obligation to keep his body and 
mind at the highest possible pitch of efficiency 
for the work which is given him to do." * 

The whole doctrine of physical manhood for 
the preacher is not the body for the body's sake, 
but for Christ's sake. Shall we not say with 
Charles Kingsley, " I could wish that I were an 
Apollo for His sake !" 

1 "Clerical Life," p. 140. 



IV 

THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF THE 
PREACHER 



OUTLINE 

Christianity and the Intellectual Life. 

The Bible does not substitute piety for the intellectual life. 
Christianity has quickened the intellectual life. 
The intellectual life in the pulpit. 
The breadth of its intellectual work. 
The influence of Intellectual Culture upon the character of the 

Preacher. 
It makes men sincere. It corrects the tendencies of a 

false liberalism and a false conservatism. 
It makes men humble. Humility is born of the larger 

vision of truth and life. Convictions are held in the 

spirit of tolerance. 
It makes balanced men. 
The law of change and variety in work. 
The influence of Intellectual Culture upon Preaching. 
It maintains a high ideal of the sermon. 
It meets the demand for strong preaching. 
It keeps the pulpit from mental poverty. 
It sustains a full life. 

It makes the sermon appropriate and timely. 
It makes the sermon a growth, the expression of a growing 

life. 
Effect upon the style of the sermon. 
The relation of Intellectual Culture to the Preacher's personal 

influence. 
Influence depends upon the range of interests. 
The use for the noblest culture. 

References : 

Phelps. "The Theory of Preaching." Lect. 40. 
Boyd-Carpenter. "Lectures on Preaching." 

Lect. 2. 
Tucker. "The Making and Unmaking of the 

Preacher." Lect. 2. 
King. "Rational Living." 



64 



IV 

THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF THE 
PREACHER 

In considering the intellectual life of the 
preacher, to the exclusion, for the moment, of 
the particular questions of piety and spirituality, 
the head is not exalted at the expense of the 
heart. Piety is the first and indispensable 
requisite of the pulpit. The man who does not 
have a personal knowledge of the Christ, a fixed 
purpose, and a daily striving to do what pleases 
Him, can be neither His friend nor His mes- 
senger. While thus exalting the spiritual life, 
it needs frequent utterance, that piety cannot 
be a substitute for mental power and possession. 

No such mistake is ever made in the Scriptures. 
The Lord chose a few humble men, to be sure, 
but their mental nature received a marvellous 
quickening and training by the Master-Teacher. 
The young fisherman of Galilee grew to be the 
profound interpreter of the life of Christ, and of 
the Christian's deepest experience. The con- 
ception of a preacher in the Old Testament is 

r 65 



66 The Intellectual Life of the Preacher 

a teacher. A prophet declares that "the priest's 
lips should keep knowledge." * "Give attention 
to reading" is the word of the Apostle Paul. 
He would have his ministers "workmen that 
need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word 
of Life." "Add to faith, knowledge." Faith 
and knowledge are joined in the divine plan of 
character and power. Faith is to be rational 
and knowledge spiritual. 

Then we must always remember that piety, 
spirituality, is not a mere matter of emotion. 
It is, first of all, a mental state, the "mind of the 
Spirit" and the "mind of Christ"; a clear 
rational view of truth and duty in the Gospel, 
a mental concept, ever growing in vividness and 
reality, as the faculties of the mind consider the 
things of Christ. 

Through the intellect must truth touch the 
affections and will, and become love and pur- 
pose. Feeble and evanescent the feelings, 
however pure and holy at the time, that are not 
fed by great thoughts. So in pleading for a 
true intellectual culture, I also plead for that 
which is essential to a strong and abiding 
spirituality. 

The Spirit is the Spirit of wisdom and under- 
standing, and must lead to conviction by first 
bringing truth to bear upon the perception and 
1 Mai. ii. 7. 



The Intellectual Life of the Preacher 67 

reason, the mental nature. He is the Spirit of 
truth and so cannot tolerate the careless, and 
superficial, and thoughtless dealing with the 
mighty problems of being. 

Revelation is embodied in a history, and 
literature, and philosophy ; and while the King's 
highway is lifted up, plain even for a simple- 
minded wayfarer, the life to which it points 
transcends human experience, and starts the 
mind upon the track of infinite search. The 
truths of Christianity make their appeal to 
reason, and demand the exercise of the highest 
reason of man. 

Christianity has largely made the intellectual 
life. The Bible has freed the mind and quick- 
ened its powers, and led to the investigations of 
science, and the discussions of being, and the 
critical dealing with theory and fact. The 
Bible stands in an ever growing environment of 
meditation, and criticism, and interpretation. 
Christianity has created the pulpit and the 
modern sermon with its educative force, with its 
duty of feeding the mind as well as the heart. 
It cannot do the latter without the first. 

There are good men, not marked by mental 
keenness and culture, even illiterate men, who 
have been spiritual forces. One may admit 
the word of Dr. Robertson Nicoll : "The greatest 
good has been accomplished by untutored men 



68 The Intellectual Life of the Preacher 

who have declared the Gospel of Christ with 
passionate earnestness and the intense love of 
souls." 

But the highest mental culture and attain- 
ment can find unreached heights and depths 
in the Gospel, and in this time of rapid enlight- 
enment, the growth of popular education is 
making new and higher demands upon the 
ministry. 

No one can be long misled by the fancy that 
the world is to be gained by social management 
or fervent feeling. The brain in the end will 
govern the feet. The long and hard mental 
work of the schools is but the beginning of the 
matured and concentrated work of manhood. 
A scholarly ministry will always outlast an 
emotional one, and build a stronger Church. 
The influence of Scotchmen to-day upon the 
intellectual life of the English-speaking world, 
their supremacy in statesmanship, philosophy, 
criticism, literature, and religion, can be traced 
unmistakably to an educated pulpit, that 
taught men to think upon the greatest subjects. 

Men sometimes grow impatient of careful 
criticism and what they please to call the dry 
intellectual life of the schools. Of course, it is 
possible to have a scholarship in which all the 
elemental passions are dried up. Criticism may 
dwell so minutely on little things as to lose all 



The Intellectual Life of the Preacher 69 

prophetic vision. But we cannot afford to do 
without this foundation work. It is much like 
the great piers of the bridge — largely out of 
sight — on which the arches rest, and over 
which the multitudes pass safely to and fro. 

We must be mentally alive to the present 
problems of religion, to the varied and pressing 
questions of our civilization. Many voices tell 
us that our eyes must be open; that we must 
set our intellectual manhood to interpret the 
life of the generation, that we suffer no truth 
of man or of nature to possess our fellow- 
men, forming laws of conduct and ideals of life, 
while we stand deaf and dumb, ignorant and 
speechless. 

It means the perspective of history, against 
which each problem shows its true significance. 
It means patient hours of study while other men 
rest or recreate. It means mental keenness and 
breadth. The words of an eminent jurist have 
a meaning for the preacher: "No man ever 
comes to great eminence in the law without a 
white face and a bent back." 

We are to be preeminently teachers of men, 
and this is intellectual work, and this implies 
that we be "learners," to use the Old Testa- 
ment name for the prophet. 

"He who would guide the thought of this 
perplexed age on the highest of all themes must 



70 The Intellectual Life of the Preacher 

set himself to master his instrument by dis- 
cipline, by labor, by economies, even perhaps 
by agonies." 

The breadth of intellectual work demanded 
of the preacher must teach the need of scholarly 
culture. He is to make an inductive study of 
men, the heredity, training, ideas, motives, 
character, and circumstances, of each person of 
his parish, — to know men, not in the mass, 
but as the individual. He is the pathologist 
of the soul, and whatever will throw light upon 
man, — whatever is the expression of the race, 
or the age, or the individual — history, or poetry, 
or philosophy, whatever it may be, — is within 
the range of his eager inquiry. 

Then he is to be the inductive student of the 
Scriptures. Whatever will make the Bible a 
real and living book; whatever will give him 
the mastery of the instrument of words, putting 
him in the place of the sacred writers, living in 
their atmosphere, seeing truth as they saw it, 
— all this is within the sphere of his earnest 
study. 

Then in our work truth is not for its own sake. 
It is to be converted into conviction, and pur- 
pose, and passion; and all this made vocal 
that men may hear and believe. 

Whatever shall teach the minister to think 
clearly and consistently ; whatever shall quicken 



The Intellectual Life of the Preacher 71 

his sensibilities, and make them keen and pure ; 
whatever shall make his speech a fit and effec- 
tive instrument of thought, — all this is a proper 
object of training and is vitally affected by the 
intellectual life. 

Such in general is the breadth of the minister's 
work, and such the variety of intellectual in- 
terest and training demanded for the highest 
power. 

Now, to come closer to the subject, let us ask 
the value of scholarly culture for the minister 
as a man, the minister as a preacher, and the 
minister as a leader of men. 

Relation to character. 

The influence of scholarly culture is to make 
men sincere, humble, well-balanced, uniting ear- 
nestness with charity. 

The Christian scholar desires to be true, true 
in thought and true in life, and this is the 
natural result of a sanctified scholarship. Natu- 
ral moods, gusts of feeling, often leading to 
eccentric forms of doctrine and life, are judged 
by reason and modified by the history of opin- 
ion. There are two strong tendencies in the 
church, as there have often been before, with 
varying degree; the one exalting individual 
opinion, the other resting on authority. 

# There are men whose mental and emotional 
attitude is ever looking forward. They have 



72 The Intellectual Life of the Preacher 

little reverence for the past, but great respect 
for the present and their own opinions. They 
have a passion for change, identifying change 
with progress. So the new things in the Church 
must be the true things : the new forms of wor- 
ship and work, the new views of Scripture, and 
the new statements of doctrine. It is some- 
what a matter of temperament, and still more 
of training ; but young men, I think, as a class, 
are fond of what promises progress. And they 
ought to be so, for to the open hearts and minds 
of young men, God's truth may come with fuller 
measure and force. "A young man's first im- 
pressions of truth and life are among God's 
reformatory forces of the world." — Stalker. 

And yet we must feel that the tendency is 
sometimes a temptation to novelty and self- 
assertion. There is an undue eagerness for the 
new, without the patient waiting to find whether 
it has foundation more real than fancy. And 
the right of the individual conscience and the 
spirit of independence not seldom drive men from 
beaten paths to pursue truth, when it is the 
mirage of their own vision they are following. 

And the other tendency is also marked: to 
rest upon received opinion and customary form 
and method. What has been found concern- 
ing the Scriptures is the limit of knowledge; 
what has been done by the Church in work and 



The Intellectual Life of the Preacher 73 

worship must have exact repetition in every 
age. And so men of this spirit do as the fathers 
have done, without regard to the new problems 
and particular needs of the generation; and 
they speak truth in the form and spirit of another 
age, blind to the fuller light that providence 
and the Spirit of God has thrown upon the 
sacred page. What shall be the corrective of 
the evil extreme in both directions, — a false 
liberalism, and a false orthodoxy? I answer: 
the scholarly culture of a mind living in the 
secret of the Lord. Such a mind will ask only 
one question about doctrine and plan — "Is it 
true, and does it accomplish its true purpose?" 
Not, is it popular or traditional, but, is it true ? 
Not, does it gratify my taste, or help my per- 
sonal power, or agree with a church creed, but 
first and always, is it taught in Scripture, and 
is it verified in Christian experience? We 
should be more willing to bring every opinion 
to this test and have more faith in the self- 
evidencing power of the truth. 

Then we shall escape the subtle temptations 
to insincerity peculiar to the ministry, and be 
sincere in the Bible sense of " tested by the sun- 
light/' — doctrine and life ever viewed in the 
clearest light of the Scriptures. 

You will agree with me, then, that to be a 
sincere student of the Word demands accurate 



74 The Intellectual Life of the Preacher 

knowledge, keenness of perception, breadth of 
wisdom, — the resultant of true mental culture. 

Scholarly culture helps to keep the minister 
intellectually humble. And the humble mind is 
closely allied to the humble heart. The danger 
of a little learning has passed into a popular 
proverb, and the only cure for the evil is larger 
knowledge. Small and superficial knowledge 
of the Scriptures and of theology, and of philos- 
ophy that has so much to do with the formulating 
of theology, not seldom accompany opinions the 
most exclusive and overwhelming in their claim. 
Men who differ from these self-appointed popes, 
however conscientious and pure in life, are in 
culpable ignorance or dangerous heresy. Oh ! 
for the humility that comes from the honest 
effort to know more of the truth, — and above 
all, the honest effort to follow it. Isaiah de- 
scribes the true prophet as one who has the 
tongue of the learner — not of the learned (R.V.) 
"and whose ear is opened every morning to 
hear the message of the new day." There can 
be no censorious pride in the heart of him who 
has caught glimpses of realms of thought still 
unmastered, and of life still unattained. 

The humility born of this larger vision of 
truth and life will not have less positive con- 
victions, but more Christlike tolerance, for those 
who see and follow the same truth, but from a 



The Intellectual Life of the Preacher 75 

slightly different angle of vision. I know it is 
not any easy attainment: strength of convic- 
tion, with charity for those who follow not us. 
It is easy to denounce the bigot, without prizing 
the strength of his faith. The world must not 
lose its faith. We must hold fast the truth as 
God gives us to see the truth; and we must 
grow in that charity that thinketh no evil. 
" Belief and charity are not in their true asso- 
ciations." Mercy and truth in the life of the 
Church have not met together. 

It is said of Dr. Caspar Hodge of Princeton, 
the greatest of the Hodges, that he taught his 
own views of truth with the greatest clearness 
and force, and that sometimes he would stop 
in the midst of doctrinal exposition and with 
new light on his face exclaim: " Young men, I 
hold and cherish these views of the Scriptures, 
but I must tell you that there are men who differ 
from me, my peers in knowledge, and before 
whose spiritual attainment I bow in humility. 
I cannot understand it, but I must admit the 
fact." 

Then, scholarly culture keeps the minister 
from one-sidedness. Broader knowledge helps 
him to healthful balance of mind and character. 
I do not state this in opposition to the well- 
known saying : "Beware the man of one book." 
True culture is not dissipation of energies, but 



76 The Intellectual Life of the Preacher 

concentration of them. And the energies come 
to the definite and supreme work of Bible study 
and use, enriched and strengthened by their ac- 
tivity in other fields. 

We must obey the law of change and variety 
in work, if mental powers are to be kept in the 
highest state of activity and efficiency. Mr. 
Spurgeon was fond of likening his study of geol- 
ogy to the opening of the windows of his mind 
that God's pure air might blow through. And 
God's breath sweeps through many fields of 
thought. 

Continual mental action in one direction tends 
to give the mind a fixedness in that direction, 
and at last an inability to work in any other 
way. The study of preachers is good food and 
training for the minister's mind; but it would 
be a positive calamity to any man to shut him- 
self up to the reading of sermons, especially 
sermons of one school or age. The mind would 
lose its vivacity, and the pulpit decline in fresh- 
ness and originality. Then the unchanging 
pursuit of a single subject, especially a partial 
and unscholarly pursuit of that one, will take 
a man out of sympathy with his fellow-men, and 
give an undue proportion and emphasis to cer- 
tain truths, that will not commend the Gospel 
to the conscience of men. They will say that 
he is a partisan, and the force of his words will 



The Intellectual Life of the Preacher *71 

be qualified as lacking the breadth of true Scrip- 
ture interest and sympathy. 

"Culture adds power to spiritual gifts/' says 
Dr. Hoppin, "and we are called upon to cherish 
broad views of our office and work as servants 
of the all-comprehending Gospel. We must 
not close our eyes to whatever is divine in nature 
and its everlasting types ; in literature, which is 
the spirit of God and man embodied in language 
and a criticism of life; in history, which is the 
manifestation of Divine will in the education of 
humanity; and in art, which is the expression 
of the life and spirit of peoples and ages, and the 
study of the beauty of the Divine mind. We 
should seek variety of intellectual culture. We 
should not have petty views of our calling, nor 
confine ourselves to the mental metes and bounds 
of a conventional idea of the ministry, but re- 
gard it as the highest and broadest calling among 
men to interpret the divine in all things, to teach 
the knowledge of God in His infinite fulness and 
perfection." ' 

In the second place, scholarly culture has 
relation to the work of the pulpit. 

It maintains a high ideal of the sermon ; not 

simply of the sermon as an artistic production, 

but as the means of accomplishing a great work. 

A study of the average audience of to-day will 

1 Hoppin, "Pastoral Theology," p. 150. 



78 The Intellectual Life of the Preacher 

reveal a condition that demands a larger mental 
life in the pulpit. 

Why are the men of the community so notice- 
ably absent, or in the minority in our churches ? 
Is the soul in man less sensitive and responsive 
to the Gospel? Are men under greater dis- 
tractions of worldliness and quicker to feel the 
destructive influences of doubt ? These reasons 
are not sufficient to account for the small pro- 
portion of men in the average congregation. We 
must go deeper than this. 

Look at some of the special difficulties felt by 
the pulpit. In the desire to attract the people, 
and in the fear lest thorough teaching of the 
truths of religion would weary the mind, the 
sermon has been made bright often at the ex- 
pense of thought: illustration and anecdote 
have scarcely covered the poverty of thought. 
A frequent appeal has been made to sentimental- 
ism. Organization has frequently overshad- 
owed the teaching office ; the mechanics of reli- 
gion have usurped the prophet's place. Ethical 
movements of thought and society that called 
for the leadership of strong men have been too 
frequently ignored by the pulpit, and so have 
found their material and courses outside the 
churches. For these reasons in part, there have 
been too many earnest, thinking men who did 
not find their needs met by the pulpit, and have 



The Intellectual Life of the Preacher 79 

been content to stay at home. They have not 
respected the pulpit as the teacher of religion 
and morals. Strong preaching is demanded; 
not lacking in brightness, using all reasonable 
means of attraction, but quick to read the 
moral needs of the day, and strong to reach 
conscience, and rich in food for minds as well 
as heart. Preaching must command the re- 
spect of minds and train mental power in the 
audience. The words of Bishop Foss of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church are appropriate 
here: "The preaching needed must come from 
men in the strenuous and perpetual process of 
an ever increasing intellectual culture and power. 
It is not to be gotten by skimming newspapers 
or dawdling over magazines, nor by looking at 
the backs of encyclopaedias. Nothing gives it 
but a steady, hard effort to master great books." 
Scholarly culture keeps the pulpit from mental 
poverty. The practical question for every min- 
ister is how to keep the mind trained and fur- 
nished. The ceaseless giving out requires as 
ceaseless pouring in. The attractiveness of the 
young minister for many is not only in his en- 
thusiasm, but in the element of hopefulness. 
He is to be a larger man and to do larger things 
for them. Alas, if the man fails of this reason- 
able hope ! Unless a man grows, he is on the 
road to mental bankruptcy. He repeats himself 



80 The Intellectual Life of the Preacher 

and the people soon begin to tire of his ministry ; 
and so he must put the machinery in motion to 
find another field. Studious ministers always 
outwear popular ministers. They gather a 
more substantial church, and the people grow in 
intelligence and character. They are equal to 
every demand upon them, and they become the 
equal of strong men and leaders in the com- 
munity. 

"Besides attending to theological studies in 
general, one ought to have a specialty. Perhaps 
the best specialty to choose is some subject 
which is just coming into notice, such as at pres- 
ent Comparative Religion, or Christian Ethics, 
or best of all, Biblical theology. Such a spe- 
cialty, early taken up, is like a well dug on one's 
property, which year by year becomes deeper. 
All the little streams and rivulets of reading 
and experience find their way into it, and al- 
most unawares the happy possessor comes to 
have within himself a fountain which makes it 
impossible that his mind should ever run dry." ' 

To come closer still to the actual making of 
the sermon, notice the relation of culture to the 
choice of subjects. There are three considera- 
tions to be held in mind in the choice for the 
subject of any particular sermon, viz. : what 
has been the line of recent preaching ; what are 

1 Stalker, "The Preacher and His Models," p. 254. 



The Intellectual Life of the Preacher 81 

the present needs of the people; and what in- 
terests you and leads you to the desire for its 
discussion. When these three unite in any pas- 
sage, then you may rest assured of your work 
and go to the people with the same conviction 
that a prophet of old had, saying, "This is the 
Lord's message." Undoubtedly the second is 
the chief consideration: What are the present 
needs of the people? And how shall we know 
the present needs? Shall we judge by the last 
pastoral call, — by a single pastoral experience ? 
It may be a hasty and superficial judgment. 
He best reads the case of individual need who 
knows the community; and he best reads the 
need of his parish who has the profoundest 
view of the forces of modern life. For there is 
little isolation now. One need is a phase of 
the general need. And the broadest experience 
and knowledge will be helpful to this matter of 
spiritual perception. 

Another question comes: Shall the sermon 
be a manufacture or a growth? The best 
ministers have sermons that are made, but the 
best sermons always grow. They are truths 
that have become known by experience, and 
they have taken their form by thinking and 
living, until the time for their utterance comes, 
then they are truth through a person — God's 
message and your message — the fruit of your 



82 The Intellectual Life of the Preacher 

life of the truth. I believe the people know the 
difference between a sermon that is crammed and 
a sermon that grows. The one shows that truth 
has been sought for an occasion; the other, 
truth for truth's sake. And there is too often 
crude opinion and hasty conviction in such 
work. Too frequent quotation is the sure sign 
of cramming and undigested opinion. 

But the ideal of the sermon is growth, and 
growth demands the broadest kind of mental 
life ; a mind, first of all, studious of the Scrip- 
tures and also of the chief parts of human inter- 
ests — ever seeking truth for truth's sake, and 
so never lacking a message for men. 

Then there is a close connection between 
breadth of culture and the style of the sermon. 

The untrained man either is always the same, 
dull and monotonous in the expression of his 
thoughts, or else fickle, as the penmanship of an 
untrained hand. In either case, there is no 
essential and personal element of style. It 
requires familiarity with the best thought to 
make the best style. It is true, men pass 
through periods of imitation, but in this way, 
through admiration, they find their own voice. 
The vividness, and richness, and fulness of the 
language in the best minds will be assimilated 
and gain personal expression. Thus the sermon 
will have individuality and variety of style. It 



The Intellectual Life of the Preacher 83 

will be the voice of the man, and will have exact 
relation to the changing thought and feeling. 

But does not culture in the minister make a 
gulf between the pulpit and the people ? Does 
it not give to preaching a literary flavor and 
finish that weakens the blow? I answer, it 
need not be the result of a Christian culture. 
The first scholar in the world, if he have the 
love of Christ in his heart, and the Christian's 
yearning for souls, will reach them, and his 
training will make him do it sooner and more 
effectively. 

The trouble is with the heart more than with 
the head. And the man who finds himself 
preaching to a literary few, and thinking of nicety 
more than strength, of polishing and refining 
more than of his message and the men before 
him, has need of instant and prayerful self- 
examination. He does not need to forget his 
culture, but to get a new heart. 

A word is in place as to the indirect relation 
of culture to a minister's success. 

We need culture to conquer prejudices against 
God's message. We are called to intercourse 
with capable and intelligent men, and must meet 
them on the ground of their tastes and training. 
Without breadth of intellectual interest and 
culture, we shall lose our opportunity. 

" One's possible influence over others depends, 



84 The Intellectual Life of the Preacher 

in no small degree, upon the range of his inter- 
ests, for influence normally requires sympathetic 
understanding, and sympathetic understanding 
means the ability to enter into the interests of 
the other man, — to see the matter from his 
point of view. Here lies the main task of every 
teacher, and of every leader of men, who does 
not mean to be a mere demagogue. If one cares 
to exert the highest influence — not merely to 
dominate another's choices — then he must seek 
such an influence as the other shall be able to 
recognize as simply the demand of his own 
sanest and best self. That influence is possible 
only to the man who has sufficient breadth of 
interests to enter into another's life with under- 
standing, respect, and sympathy." 1 

Intellectual and social problems fill the 
minds of earnest men ; and we believe that these 
problems will never be answered until the 
Gospel word is given and accepted. Whether 
the answer is to be given from the pulpit or in 
social life, the minister is called to be a careful 
student of such problems. 

I do not think it is possible for us to be too 
well furnished. It is true, we can afford to — 
we must — let many things go in order to be 
masters of the one Book. But never let the 
plea be the sanctimonious one, — to hide our 
1 King, "Rational Living," p. 11. 



The Intellectual Life of the Preacher 85 

indifference to culture, or poverty of attain- 
ment. 

"If I could be persuaded that the theory of 
ministerial culture which I have tried to repre- 
sent to you could result legitimately in any such 
drifting asunder of the pulpit and the lower 
orders of society, I would abandon the whole of 
it. I would drop it as I would a viper. A 
preacher had better work in the dark, with 
nothing but mother-wit, a quickened con- 
science, and a Saxon Bible to teach him what 
to do and how to do it, than to vault into an 
aerial ministry in which only the upper classes 
shall know or care anything about it. You had 
better go and talk the Gospel in the Cornish 
dialect to those miners who told the witnesses 
summoned by the command of the English 
Parliament that they had "never heard of 
Mister Jesus Christ in these mines," than to 
do the work of the Bishop of London. Make 
your ministry reach the people; in the form of 
purest culture if you can, but reach the people ; 
with elaborate doctrine if possible, but reach the 
people; with classic speech if it may be, but 
reach the people. The great problem of life 
to an educated ministry is to make their culture 
a power instead of a luxury. 

"It is not less education that our clergy need. 
It is inconceivable to me how any educated man 



86 The Intellectual Life of the Preacher 

can see relief from our present dangers, or from 
any dangers, in that direction. Ignorance is a 
remedy for nothing. Imperfection of culture 
is always a misfortune." 1 

An American woman of the finest training, 
taste, and manners, who would have graced any 
society, spent her life as a missionary in Africa. 
Yet she testified that there was no wasted gift, 
no unused attainment. All the culture of her 
beautiful youth — music, and letters, and art 
— found their place in the christianizing of a 
savage people. So I believe it to be with God's 
servants everywhere. Whatever is true and 
beautiful, whatever can quicken the mind and 
feed the heart, is acceptable to Christ and blessed 
to men. 

1 Phelps, "Theory of Preaching," p. 583. 



THE INTELLECTUAL METHOD OF 
THE PREACHER 



OUTLINE 

The nature of pulpit work an argument for Method. 

The variety of pulpit topics. 

The demands of the same congregation. 

The pressure of parish work. 

The need for the enrichment of life. 
Method the condition of the Preacher's Growth. 

The test of the early years. 
Special danger to the Preacher is Lack of Method. 

In the fact that he is his own master. 

In the variety of interests brought to him. 

In the pressure of life. 

In the unwonted range of duties. 
The Power of Method. 

It utilizes time easily wasted. 

It makes a full man and so an instructive pulpit. 

The moral elevation attending true method. 
The possible danger of Method. 
What should be covered by Method? 

Systematic knowledge of the Bible. 

The religious and social thought of the age. 

Some department of higher literature for delight and 
power. 
Method in study related to Method of Teaching. 

Value of a church year. 

Need of a yearly outline for a free pulpit. 

Suggestions as to method. 

Hints as to courses of sermons. 
Principles of Method — Phillips Brooks. 

Two practical suggestions. 

References : 

Brooks. "Lectures on Preaching." Lect. 3, 5. 
Tucker. "The Making and the Unmaking of 

the Preacher." Lect. 3. 
Hall. "Qualifications for Ministerial Power." 

Lect. 2. 
Johnson. "The Ideal Ministry." Lect. 10. 

88 



THE INTELLECTUAL METHOD OF THE 
PREACHER 

The young man who preaches continuously in 
the same pulpit frequently says, " It seems at the 
end of each Sunday that I should never have 
anything to say again." It suggests the ex- 
hausting work of giving two and often three 
addresses a week on religion to the same group 
of people, year after year. It reminds one of 
the sort of apology for the pulpit made several 
years ago, by Charles Dudley Warner (no doubt 
a humorous exaggeration), that the minister 
had as much writing to do as the editor, as 
much correspondence as the average business 
man, and as many calls to make as the doctor. 
Much of the preacher's work is bound to be 
imperfectly done, ideals shattered by the hard 
necessities of daily life; and none of it will be 
worthy of a Gospel workman, a co-laborer with 
God, unless the intellectual life is kept full, and 
this life obeys the best laws of habit. 

One of the brightest and most devoted of 

89 



90 The Intellectual Method of the Preacher 

preachers has said that one of the serious diffi- 
culties of his ministry was to know what to 
preach upon. He felt that he often wasted 
much precious time hunting for a text; some- 
times half the week was gone before he was able 
to settle upon his subjects for the coming 
Sunday. Here again was a practical question 
of method. 

"I know," said John Wesley, "were I to 
preach one whole year in one place, I should 
preach both myself and my congregation asleep. 
Nor can I believe it was ever the will of the Lord 
that any congregation should have one preacher 
only. No one whom I ever yet knew has all the 
talents which are needful for beginning, con- 
tinuing, and perfecting the work of grace in a 
whole congregation/' 1 

There are men who grow very little in the 
ministry. Their sermons are repetitions of the 
few truths learned in the class room, or out of a 
few books of religion. They grow weary of the 
ceaseless demands of mental and spiritual 
production. They allow the practical demands 
of the parish and the business of getting ready 
two sermons for the Sunday to break into their 
studious habits. And they deceive themselves 
into thinking that the difficulties are peculiar 

1 Quoted by Mason, "The Ministry of Conversion," 
p. 148. 



The Intellectual Method of the Preacher 91 

to their present parish, and so they set in 
motion the wheels to secure another church, — 
they join the army of candidates that fairly 
besiege the doors of every fair field. Such 
examples — and they are everywhere in the 
ministry — call special attention to intellectual 
methods. 

" Ministers are of two classes. There are those 
whose profession springs from their lives ; there 
are those whose lives spring from their profes- 
sion. The one class is continually, in the spirit 
of a large vision, getting ready for life; the 
other, in a small horizon of a microscopic glance, 
is always preparing for next Sunday." 

You listen to some sermons and you feel that 
they are scrap-book sermons — pieced together ; 
they are crammed from commentaries and 
homiletic hand-books. There is truth but no 
consistency, no singleness, no strong and glowing 
life flows forth, and so there is little refreshing 
and fruit-bearing. There may be brightness 
and timeliness, but no systematic teaching of 
truth. The congregations may be large, and a 
certain enthusiasm for the Church, but little 
growth in the grace and knowledge of Christ, 
and so in the fruit of the Spirit. Such churches 
are not strong in the Lord, because their leaders 
are not mighty in the Scriptures. Again, the 
defect is largely in the intellectual habits. 



92 The Intellectual Method of the Preacher 

There is little systematic enrichment of life, 
and so in the sermon there is little life to 
give. 

There is need of a strong word in regard to the 
method of the minister's intellectual life. 

The deepest, strongest currents flow between 
well-defined banks. And the mental life is the 
strongest, not that flows hither and thither 
according to the gust of the moment, but with a 
steady purpose between the limits of reasonable 
methods. 

The preacher must have method if he grows 
strong, if each man brings out the utmost in- 
crease of his gifts for the Master's use. 

The man goes forth from the seminary with 
certain ideals of work. Like a master workman, 
one that does not need to be ashamed, shall he 
steadily move towards the ideal with increasing 
efficiency or shall he succumb to easy and super- 
ficial habits, and the stress of distracting and 
opposing circumstances ? 

The first years of the ministry will put to the 
severest test the ideals of work that have been 
formed. They will fix the methods and habits 
of life. If one does not grow in the power of 
exegesis then, he will probably give up all 
thorough preparation for the pulpit. If he 
does not grow then in the mastery of great 
books, he will probably get his mental food in 



The Intellectual Method of the Preacher 93 

skimming newspapers and dipping into the 
current literature of magazines. 

It has been said so often by men of varied 
experience that there must be large truth in it, 
that the first five years of a man's ministry are 
the index of his future. They are prophetic 
of weakness or of power. It simply means that 
they largely form the standards and habits 
of his life. "The first five years of my ministry 
were practically wasted/' said a well-known 
minister of the Church, and in later years he has 
tried, though not with entire success, to make up 
for the irregularity of his earlier studies. 

The minister is in special danger of unmethod- 
ical work from his peculiar circumstances. He 
is no longer at the call of the bell, and the hours 
of the academic life need be kept no longer. The 
laborer in nearly every other sphere — the 
doctor, the lawyer, the merchant, the teacher — 
must keep certain hours and follow certain 
routine of work. But happily or unhappily, the 
minister is master of himself, of his hours and 
his powers. Or at least, he may seem so; but 
there is a master not himself, — the public 
opinion of the Church, and above this still, the 
head of the Church. But the trouble is that the 
day of judgment may be postponed. The wast- 
ing of energies and the neglect of powers may not 
bring the sharp and immediate "cast him out" 



94 The Intellectual Method of the Preacher 

pronounced upon the unprofitable servant. If 
he is only ready in some way for the immediate 
demands of the pulpit, the mental poverty may 
be concealed even from himself. 

If he is a country pastor, nature presents her 
attractions or demands : the morning is bright, 
the air pure and bracing, it is a good time to care 
for his garden or take a drive into the country. 
If the day is lowery, it is a good time to go a-fish- 
ing. He will think of his sermon while he works 
or plays, or he throws a sop to his conscience by 
leaning over the fence and talking with a neigh- 
bor about the church, or calling a moment upon 
some country parishioner. 

If he is a city pastor, there are the more power- 
ful attractions of human interests. The morning 
papers come to his door, or letters from an ever 
growing correspondence. These press many 
curious and vital questions upon him. He is not 
a recluse, a book-worm, but open to the voices 
of each new day. The World's Congress of 
Religion is more important than the Council of 
Trent; the agitations of the unemployed than 
the contests of Guelphs and Ghibellines. He 
is a man, and nothing that concerns man can 
be foreign to him. He is a man of God, and is 
bound to see the handwritings upon the walls 
of modern cities. The temptations of human 
interests are very great. He may spend the 



The Intellectual Method of the Preacher 95 

best hour of the morning on his paper or review. 
Alexander Maclaren exhorts young men to keep 
the newspaper out of the study until after dinner, 
and Dr. Pattison adds the gloss, — "the later 
you dine the better." 

Then, we live in an age of organization and 
social pressure. The church may be a huge 
machine, needing attention in a hundred parts. 
The minister may sink his prophetic office in 
management. Instead of a leader, he may be 
a boss. Instead of trusting others and show- 
ing them their work and inspiring them to it, 
he may insist upon having his hand upon every 
part of it. And so his time and strength may 
be cut up by committee meetings, and printing, 
and all sorts of schemes. "Faith and ex- 
pediency alike call you away from these side 
issues, that you may have leisure and vigor to 
spare for the greatest things of all." 

He is a public man and a social leader and 
wishes to have the largest influence, and he may 
forget that the best thing he can do for Christ's 
Kingdom is to establish a spiritual Church, and 
that this requires the most careful spiritual 
teaching; and he may never say "no" to in- 
vitations for social meetings and convention 
speeches, and all sorts of extras. When Mr. 
Hillis followed David Swing, he said to his 
people, "You must not expect me to be a social 



96 The Intellectual Method of the Preacher 

roundsman, if I am to bring to you a helpful 
word of God." When Dr. Gordon went to the 
Old South Church, Boston, he vowed for the 
first two years to say "no" to every outside call, 
and he kept his vow, and now he has the freedom 
of the country. Dr. Tucker, in a lecture on 
"The Unmaking Process/' speaks of the " subtle 
refinement of laziness that postpones the hard 
and exacting duty beyond the one which is 
easier and more agreeable. The minister has 
an unwonted range of duties. Every day gives 
a large choice. He can satisfy his conscience 
by keeping at work indiscriminately ; he can be 
the busiest man in town, and yet leave his great 
task undone. He is simply working out of 
proportion. He can do this; few other men 
can. And every preacher is working out of 
proportion when he does not make preaching 
the one high, commanding, inspiring duty of 
his life." x 

Think of the power gained by method. 

It utilizes the moments that would otherwise 
go to waste. It is not a plea for a bookish life. 
Men are more than books. And the time spent 
in friendly intercourse with men, understanding 
their natures, putting self in their place, and the 
moments of recreation, care-free and even idle, 
may be among the best moments of life. The 
1 "The Making and Unmaking of the Preacher," p. 70. 



The Intellectual Method of the Preacher 97 

seeking of men is divine, and play may be as 
divine as work. But every man knows that 
system is the only way to save time, in the 
sense of putting it to the proper use, as also in 
the sense of securing the hours for the various 
demands of the pulpit and parish. 

Take the odd moments in waiting for others, 
or the moments of relief in turning from one 
work to another. A book on the table may be 
mastered and not draw at all upon the larger 
portions of time. But if there is no plan, the 
book will not be there. 

The pastor of one of the churches in the middle 
West has gained a comprehensive knowledge of 
modern missions by this systematic use of the 
odd moments. Method is the only way to 
reach the many-sidedness of the highest pulpit 
power. Results that seem prodigies to lazy 
and irregular minds are the work of methodical 
industry. Anthony Trollope was a clerk in the 
general post-office and his official hours did not 
begin until ten ; and so he got two hours in the 
morning for writing, and he trained himself 
to write two hundred and fifty words an hour, 
rarely falling below this measure. And though 
his literary production was as regular as a 
machine, his novels are not lacking in the vari- 
ety and spontaneity of real life. Readers of the 
Letters of Sir Walter Scott will remember that 



98 The Intellectual Method of the Preacher 

he daily set himself a distinct task and was 
unhappy unless he accomplished it. 

Method will find a place for necessary and 
important study, and the accumulation of such 
hours will make a full man, and so a suggestive 
and instructive pulpit. A few men may not be 
able to work freely and forcefully under strict 
laws, but with the majority such laws need never 
be chains, but a harness with which to do God's 
work. "The old Dean" (says Guthrie, re- 
ferring to Dean Milman of St. Paul, the author 
of "Latin Christianity") "is a pattern to us all. 
He tells me that he is now seventy-five; that 
notwithstanding this he is at work every morning 
at seven o'clock; that such has been the habit 
of his life; that he counts the morning hours, 
when the body is recruited by sleep and the mind 
is fresh, the precious hours of the day for study 
and acquiring knowledge; and that he owes to 
them, chiefly, all his acquisitions and his position 
in life." 

Not the least value of true intellectual method 
is the moral elevation that inseparably attends 
it. The preacher has made honest use of his 
powers; he has obeyed the laws of mental life, 
he has redeemed the time, and he can go to his 
people with an open face and a pure conscience. 

God's Spirit comes into human weakness, and 
words that seem unworthy may be the very 



The Intellectual Method of the Preacher 99 

forms of divine power. But such help is given 
to faithfulness, never to idleness and shift less- 
ness. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth and 
thoroughness, not of insincerity. And when a 
man has been honest with truth and opportunity, 
with God and himself, there is a girding up of 
his moral life, a sense of God's favor and pres- 
ence. He has the happy consciousness of what 
Lowell calls "work done squarely, and unwasted 
days." 

Method may be a danger; it may become a 
slavery and not a source of power. But in such 
cases it will be found that method has become 
an end and not kept solely as a means. It is 
worthless to a minister unless it accomplishes 
the holiest purposes, and the moment it fails of 
that, something better should take its place. It 
is good for our pet scheme to be broken in upon 
by the cry of need, and all truth should make us 
the more sensitive to the low, sad music of 
humanity. 

Method will be a danger to weak natures, those 
that are imitators and followers of others. But 
strong, full natures will be individual in their 
expression, using the old channels, or making 
new ones as the need may be. 

What shall the method be? 

It would be unwise to lay down any rules of 
method, or any definite scheme of work. It 



100 The Intellectual Method of the Preacher 

would likely defeat its own purpose. What 
would help one man might not be good for 
another. 

But it might be said in general, that the 
morning hours are the best for work, and that 
a long morning five times a week should be de- 
voted to Bible study and sermon preparation; 
that usually the afternoon should be given to 
pastoral work and outdoor exercise (though you 
must go to men where you can find them) ; 
and that the evenings that are free from church 
engagements may be used for social duties and 
special reading. 

Whatever be the individual method, certain 
things should be aimed at by all. 

Systematic knowledge of the Bible. 

The first hour of the morning so devoted for 
five days of the week will make men genuine 
students of the Bible. As a single hour is some- 
times only enough to get a good start on any 
special Bible study, many prefer to take an 
entire morning. At least some time each week 
should be devoted to Bible study more general 
and far-reaching than the issue of next Sunday's 
sermon. In this way a man can learn to know 
the Bible, — not as a storehouse of texts, but 
a history of redemption, the place and influence 
of its chief characters, the place in the canon, 
and the peculiar message of each book. 



The hitellectual Method of the Preacher 101 

If a man could thus study two books a year 
(and it is not an unreasonable hope), a score of 
years would cover the most important parts of 
the Scriptures. If you cannot do this work in 
Greek and Hebrew (and most students know 
hardly more than will help them to understand 
good commentaries), then by all means do your 
exegetical work with the English Bible. Pro- 
fessor George F. Moore of Harvard, in his defence 
of theological education before the International 
Council of Congregational Churches at Boston, 
speaks of "a larger exegesis, a broader interpre- 
tation and view of inspiration, to which it is 
clear that that which is really inspired and in- 
spiring in the Scriptures resides in every trans- 
lation, even in the poorest, not to speak of our 
own noblest version, as well as in the letter of 
the Greek and Hebrew." Then do not give up 
this systematic study of the Bible because you 
cannot work easily in the original languages. 

Do your own thinking. Learn to trust your 
judgments. Of course, you will have the hu- 
mility and the scholarly desire to correct and 
enlarge your views by the use of some of the 
best helps. And let there be some record of 
this work, at least so far as putting down the 
results in a note-book. Daily, while engaged in 
this study, put down any helpful thought or 
text for a sermon. 



102 The Intellectual Method of the Preacher 

Such work, made a habit, will inevitably make 
you a full Bible student and your pulpit rich 
with Bible truth. Your sermons will not be 
like Gratiano's reasons : " a grain of wheat in a 
bushel of chaff. ' y 

This is not an ambitious plan ; it is so simple 
that any man can follow it with ordinary devotion. 

Next to the systematic knowledge of the 
Bible comes the Religious Thought and Life of 
the Age. 

This means reading in philosophy, theology, 
ethics, practical movements, and religion. A 
minister will get much of this in reviews and 
papers. But he should not be content with 
these. One strong book in two or three of 
these related fields of thought can be read each 
year. But especially as a Christian teacher a 
man is to know the movement in morals and 
religion ; this much to feel the pulse of the time, 
and still more to see to it that the church and 
Christian men are in true alliance with whatever 
promises larger visions of truth and progress in 
the betterment of mankind. For a minister to 
be ignorant of the missionary work of the church, 
is like a general ignorant of the forces and coun- 
try that he is commanded to invade. And 
there is nothing better for a man's heart-life, 
nothing richer in its materials for inspiring 
teaching, than the records of modern missions. 



The Intellectual Method of the Preacher 103 

And then there should be the study of some 
department of higher literature for delight and 
power. You may not have the time to read 
widely, but you can be the friend of some 
master mind. That's a fine rule of Dr. Hale's : 
"Try every day to hold converse with some 
stronger and nobler life than yourself." You 
can easily become familiar (so that characters 
and scenes shall be like dear friends) with some 
great novelist, or poet, or historian. 

Then you must read sometimes simply to 
know what other people are feeding upon. 
Under the general preparation of reading, Dr. 
Boynton, in "Lectures on Preaching," gives a 
glimpse into his own study; it was written 
several years ago: "Just now on my table are 
three poets : Browning — he is always there ; 
Kipling, with his billowy ' Seven Seas'; Paul 
Dunbar, the first colored American poet, with 
his remarkable dialect songs. The novel is 
'Quo Vadis,' the latest work of the Polish 
Sienkiewicz; the history is of Poland; the 
biography is the life of George Romanes; the 
theology is two volumes upon God, by Professor 
Harris of Yale, and 'Moral Evolution/ by 
Professor Harris of Andover, which has passed 
to a third reading ; the homiletic is Van Dyke's 
'Gospel for an Age of Doubt/ and Mr. Nicoll's 
'When Worst comes to Worst.'" 



104 The Intellectual Method of the Preacher 

After such a suggestive list, you will wish to 
know how he reads : "One reads, and reads, and 
reads in such companionship, and finds that he 
grows. You should devour some books — you 
will. You should detest some books — you will. 
And both processes will have homiletic value. 
The truth is, there are different ways of reading. 
You read different things for different purposes, 
and the purpose covers the method. Some 
books you skim; some you study. In the one 
case your quest is illustration; in the other, 
ideas. The first may be a novel; the second, a 
theology." 

Method in study should be a help to method 
in teaching. The Church year insures an or- 
derly presentation of the great facts and truths 
of Christianity. And the pulpits that are not 
bound by a prescribed order should be all the 
more careful to teach the faith in its breadth and 
unity, that the life of the Church may be vig- 
orous and expanding. A free pulpit is in danger 
of being unduly individual and even erratic. 
The present taste of the preacher may be fol- 
lowed, or what seems a present demand of the 
community, at the expense of systematic in- 
struction, and so, largeness of life. The desire 
to attract the fickle mind of this strenuous age, 
— an age fed on intellectual scraps, — has led 
to variety and novelty, and so to the loss of 



The Intellectual Method of the Preacher 105 

thorough and constructive teaching. And the 
hope of better teaching is in the orderly mind of 
the preacher, and in his habits of orderly study. 

A thoughtful minister, at the beginning of 
the year, will map out in large outline the 
special studies that he will pursue. And this 
plan will be determined by his past studies and 
by the need of his church and community, looked 
at in a generous way. And his studies will find 
their way into his sermons. Not that the ser- 
mon will be about the last book that he has 
read. Such preaching is subjective and book- 
ish, and not a living word to men. But if the 
studies are chosen in view of the needs of men 
and thought out and applied to life, the ser- 
mons will command the mind and conscience of 
the hearers. A young man especially, without 
large reserves of experience, will need to make 
his studies contribute directly to his preaching. 
And all sermons would gain in thoughtfulness 
and constructive power if they were related to 
thorough and long-continued study of truth and 
life. 

It is best to make only suggestions as to or- 
derly preaching, not to lay down rules or plan. 

The communion seasons may sometimes direct 
the topics; sermons leading to the choice of 
Christ; and then sermons on the simple truths 
of Christian living. The Bible studies should 



106 The Intellectual Method of the Preacher 

lead to short courses on books, or doctrines, or 
duties. Truth is revealed through persons, and 
the persons of the Bible furnish rich material 
for interesting and inspiring teaching. Dr. 
Taylor's " Elijah the Prophet" and "Paul the 
Missionary" are good examples of the wealth 
and effectiveness of such material. The Church 
should not be ignorant of her great leaders, 
heroes, and saints, and especially of the modern 
movements in missions and reform and social 
betterment. Pulpit topics are suggested by 
timely events, as Bible revision, Creed revision, 
the Luther anniversary, the Centennial, the 
spiritual interpretation of the events of the 
year. 

The volumes of the Expositor's Bible are 
worthy examples of series of sermons on books 
of the Bible ; but they were given to congrega- 
tions homogeneous in race and training, and 
would hardly be adapted to the heterogeneous 
nature of American congregations. 

The following lists are suggestive of the 
systematic instruction and variety of interest 
and appeal found in the study of two writings : 
Amos, of the Old Testament, and the Epistle 
to the Philippians, of the New. 



The Intellectual Method of the Preacher 107 



AMOS 

i. 9 Forgetting the Brotherly Covenant, 

iii. 2 Privilege and Accountability, 

v. 13 Is it Prudent to keep Silence ? 

v. 21-24 Justice before Worship, 
vi. 1 A False Ease in Religion, 

vi. 4-6 Dangers of Luxury, 
vii. 7 God's Plumb-line. 

vii. 12-15 God's Prophet not a Professional nor a 

Hireling, 
viii. 4-6 The Sabbath, the Bulwark of the Poor. 

ii. 12 | Suppression of God's Word means Famine 
viii. 11-12 J of Truth. 



PHILIPPIANS 

i. 1-11 A Pastor's Noble Prayer for his People. 

i. 21-26 The Great Dilemma. 

i. 27-30 The Life that befits the Gospel. 

ii. 1-11 The Mind of Christ. 

ii. 12-18 Working out Salvation. 

ii. 19-30 The Mirror of Friendship, 

iii. 1-13 Paul's Master Passion, 

iii. 17-21 Citizenship in Heaven, 

iv. 1-3 The Book of Life, 

iv. 4-7 Joy and Peace, 

iv. 8-9 Think and Act. 

iv. 10-13 The Greatest Secret in the World, 

iv. 14-19 The Fruit of Christian Generosity, 

iv. 21-23 Sainthood in a Palace. 



108 The Intellectual Method of the Preacher 

Phillips Brooks suggests the only, danger of 
courses of sermons : "The system of long courses 
is apt to secure proportion at too great an ex- 
pense of spontaneity. The only sure means of 
securing the result is orderliness in the preach- 
er's mind; the grasp of Christian truth as a 
system, and of the Christian life as a steady 
movement of the whole nature through Christ 
to the Father." 

And elsewhere he speaks golden words about 
the whole question of method : 

"Make your own methods. Be truly inde- 
pendent. Do what is best for you." 

"Be sure that methods come out of your own 
nature, and are not the result of mere 
accident. Let them be intelligent and 
governed by reason." 

"Let them be noble, for large ideals and sacred 
purposes, and not minute conveniences." 

" Let them be broad, — not narrow and minute, 
— with plenty of room to fill out and grow." 

I am sure that we need more concentration in 
our study. Some of us are strangers to close, 
continuous thinking. We need some of Socra- 
tes' power of absorption in thought. Such con- 
centration is stimulating to all the powers of 
mind. It produces more and of a higher order. 

Edward Everett Hale has told preachers that 



The Intellectual Method of the Preacher 109 

they waste time in spending two or three morn- 
ings in the work of writing the sermon, a work 
that could be better done in as many hours. 

In closing I would make two simple but very 
practical suggestions. 

Finish the work begun. Some studies are full 
of half-finished work, in every direction. We 
need the discipline and power of completion. 
And this applies especially to the sermon. The 
work may be hard, — you may be dissatisfied, 
— but work on to the end. It is far more likely 
to be the Word of God, than something chosen 
at the last moment. 

Do not crowd the work into the end of the 
week, writing into the early hours of the Sab- 
bath. Some examples have set the wrong 
fashion. Lyman Beecher wrote with fury Sun- 
day morning until the last church bell began to 
ring, and was waylaid at the door of his study 
by some member of his family lest he should 
hasten into the pulpit in his study gown and 
slippers. Dr. Parkhurst has said that his own 
method is only a warning to young men. In 
some men a fervor is born of such preparation. 
But the most of us need the assurance of work 
thoroughly done, and the expression of a body 
rested and quickly responsive to the immortal 
spirit within. 



VI 

THE SPIRITUAL LIFE OF THE 
PREACHER 



OUTLINE 

The Nature of the Spiritual Life. 
Identified with Mysticism. 

The strength and weakness of Mysticism. 
Identified with Pietism. 

The use of feeling in religion. 
Identified with Asceticism. 

Self-denial an abiding principle of Christianity. Its 
highest expression in permeation, not in separation. 
The Spiritual Life is a rational state; a life governed by 
the mind and spirit of Christ. 
The Characteristics of a Spiritual Ministry. 

Sincerity. Relation to changing views of doctrine. 
Mental and spiritual unselfishness. 

The special dangers of intellectual pride. 

The possible narrowness of devotion. 
Humility. Temptation to vanity and the dogmatic spirit. 
Cheerfulness and Gravity. 

Cause and cure of depression. 

The abuse and power of humor. 
Patience. 

The twin elements of hope and endurance. 

References : 

F. D. Huntington. "Personal Religious Life in 

the Ministry." 
Lyman Abbott. "The Christian Ministry." 

Chap. 7. 
Chadwick. "Pastoral Teaching of St. Paul." 

Chap. 3, 4. 
Brooks. "Lectures on Preaching." Lect. 7, 8. 
Hall. "Qualifications for Ministerial Power." 

Lect. 3. 
Behrends. "Philosophy of Preaching." Lect. 

6,7. 



112 



VI 

THE SPIRITUAL LIFE OF THE 
PREACHER 

It should be said at the outset that the 
separation of our life into the intellectual and 
the spiritual is a matter of thought and not of 
life. The spiritual life is to rule the entire man. 
"Religion is not a department of life, it is a 
standard by which all life is to be measured, 
a principle by which all life is to be governed, a 
spirit by which all life is to be imbued." Moses 
Stuart's exegetical study of the Bible was in the 
highest degree spiritual and devotional. Daniel, 
with the care of an empire on his shoulders, 
prayed three times a day, with his windows 
open towards Jerusalem. In both lives there 
was no artificial separation between the sacred 
and the secular, the spiritual and the material. 
The relation of the soul to God rules the whole 
life. 

What is spirituality — a spiritual life ? 

Spirituality and the spiritual life are terms in 
constant use, but are not thereby free from 
i 113 



114 The Spiritual Life of the Preacher 

vagueness and a certain unreality and even mis- 
conception. It is not threshing over old straw 
to ask, what is a spiritual life? 

It is often identified with mysticism, but it 
may be something else, and is always more than 
mysticism. Many of the mystics have been 
men of the loftiest spirituality, but it is a partial 
truth to say with the mystics: " Religion is not 
a series of notions or practices, but an inner 
life. Correct views of truth do not insure the 
humble walk. Knowledge and zeal are. not the 
greatest things in the world. God and the soul 
cannot be put into the postulates of reason. 
Mystery wraps the holy of holies. But we can 
trust the imperishable sense of God in the soul. 
We can honor conscience as our King. We can 
reach forth our lame hands of faith, and call to 
Him whom we believe to be the Lord of all." 

It is the soul hungry after God that thus 
speaks, feeling the eternal mystery of being, 
and seeking to be real through it all. 

And the spirit of mysticism has spoken through 
great reformations, in eras of spiritual progress, 
and striven for deeper and more abiding reali- 
ties. God is too transcendent to be put into a 
mere definition. Religion is life as well as 
creed, and the life of religion is the breath of 
the divine spirit, it is the impartation of the 
Spirit of God. 



The Spiritual Life of the Preacher 115 

" Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands 
and feet." 

And who has not felt a natural impatience — 
it is peculiar to young men — with the form of 
life, and would reach out and touch the person ! 
Rites and churches and creed, yes, and the 
Bible itself, are only helps to this closer and vital 
life of the soul in God. 

" Beyond the sacred page 
I seek Thee, Lord : 
My spirit pants for Thee, 
Living Word." 

So there is truth in mysticism. The noblest 
teachers of the spiritual life, from Paul to 
Phillips Brooks, have had an element of mysti- 
cism. The dry, hard statement of truth with- 
out a sense of the encompassing and indwelling 
life is scholasticism and spiritual dearth. 

But the weakness and danger of mysticism is 
the scorn of means in the search for spiritual 
life, and the undue trust in the moral and re- 
ligious feelings that have more than once led to 
fanaticism and even to practical denial. God 
not only touches every soul that comes into the 
world, but He has incarnated His life. He has 
put before us in clear, definite form His life and 
our true life in Jesus Christ. He has given us 
an objective expression of spiritual truth. And 



116 The Spiritual Life of the Preacher 

so, not in dim spiritual impressions, partaking 
of the imperfections of the human heart, but 
upon the growing perception of God in Christ, 
depends our spiritual life. 

"The new state of feeling into which the 
Christian enters clings to something richer than 
itself. It needs an objective reality, which it 
distinguishes from its own nature. Greater and 
higher than all religious emotion within the 
Christian, there rises and towers religious 
thought, which points away beyond all that we 
have already felt and experienced, on to a bound- 
less wealth which lies beyond. — Herman. 

Spirituality is often identified with pietism. 
But it is more than the condition of feeling 
which is technically called religious. It is not 
in the exercises and states of heart that are pop- 
ularly called "enjoyment of religion." It does 
not depend upon the unction with which 
pious words are spoken, or the feelings that 
outflow in song and exhortation. 

When I say that pietism is not to be identified 
with spirituality, I do not mean to ignore the 
feelings in religion. The great heart is always 
the source of strength. We ought to put more 
heart into our worship and into our service. 
Truth is powerless until it touches the affections 
and will. "He shall baptize you with fire " is 
the prophecy, symbol of that God-breathed pas- 



The Spiritual Life of the Preacher 117 

sion, that abiding enthusiasm that quickens and 
utilizes life in holy service. But there is an 
emotional religion that never takes hold of the 
deep things of truth and character, that has no 
strong intellectual grasp in it, and so is transient 
and variable as the moods of men ; that has no 
breadth of knowledge in it, and so is often nar- 
row and pernicious in its influence; that does 
not ally itself with conscience, and so does little 
to purify life and establish righteousness. A 
true, abiding enthusiasm is born and sustained 
of a clear, rational vision. 

Spirituality is often identified with asceticism. 
But true spirituality keeps self-denial as a 
means, not an end; it holds that there is no 
virtue in self-denial itself, any more than in 
luxury. It is not ascetic in body or mind. It 
is neither monkish, nor puritanic. Its senses 
are not dull to the beauty of the world. Its 
heart is not steeled against the kinship of nature 
and human life, against recreations that lift 
the burden from the back, and the joys that 
brighten and sweeten society. Perhaps there 
is little need for this caution. The modern 
Church is not in special danger of the ascetic 
spirit. We ought to honor the heroism that 
could turn from home and mother to rocky dens 
and caves of the earth, the unflinching allegiance 
to conviction that built godly homes in the 



118 The Spiritual Life of the Preacher 

wilderness. The monk was a protest, and the 
Puritan had stern work to do in the day of the 
Lord. Each age has its peculiar mission, its 
special message to emphasize. Separation has 
been more than once the providential work of 
the past, and it will always be an element of a 
spiritual Church. "Come out, and be ye 
separate" is an abiding principle of Christianity. 
But is not ours a still higher work, as it is more 
difficult — that of permeation ? The vital truth 
of the cross can never cease. Christ has not 
been crucified for us until He becomes the law 
of life in us. If we know not the spirit of self- 
sacrifice, we have not learned the first letter of 
the Christian alphabet. "He who does not 
know what self-sacrifice means/' says General 
Armstrong, "is most to be pitied; for he is a 
heathen, he doesn't know anything of God." 
But he adds, "What men commonly count self- 
sacrifice is simply the noblest way of using one's 
powers." Is it not the providential mission of 
our time to carry this spirit into every part of 
man's nature and every province of man's 
life? 

Let us not say this act is religious, and this 
is secular. Let us make all things sacred that 
God has given, and call nothing profane. What 
God has cleansed, that we cannot call common 
and unclean. This is God's world, and not the 



The Spiritual Life of the Preacher 119 

devil's. The earth and human life were made 
sacred by Christ's becoming a man and living 
here. This is the truth of Christianity that 
glorifies this home of ours, and shall build the 
New Jerusalem. 

" All our senses, and tastes, and faculties were 
made to enjoy God's gifts and glorify Him in 
their use. Summer fields and summer skies 
speak heaven's harmony, and say to us that 
they have a message to every open heart from 
the King in His beauty. And the men and 
women about us cry through dim and misty 
strivings ! — we can live ; we can worship ; we 
have God's spirit within; teach us how to dis- 
cern and obey this spirit. All the world gen- 
erations have but one voice. How can we be- 
come one? At harmony with God, and God's 
universe?" — Kingsley. 

In the distinctions that I have thus tried to 
make in the different manifestations of what 
the world has regarded as spirituality, I have 
already drawn, by inference, what seem to me 
the elements of the spiritual life. Not mysti- 
cism, though mysticism may never be separate 
from its loftiest attainment. Not pietism, 
though the most ecstatic fervor is born of it. 
Not asceticism, though the highest test of it 
may be in the willing self-abnegation. Spiritu- 
ality is not primarily nor essentially an emo 



120 The Spiritual Life of the Preacher 

tional state, though the mightiest passion beats 
in it. 

It is, first of all, a rational state, a mental 
life. It is called in the Scriptures " heavenly 
mindedness," "the mind of the Spirit,' ' and 
"the mind of Christ." It begins in belief in 
Jesus Christ, the reason accepting the evidences, 
the affections thrilling their response, the will 
yielding its choice, — the whole man turning to 
Christ. 

Spirituality then means a way of looking at 
life and duty, — God and the world ; a definite 
and determined course of life. It is connect- 
ing everything with the will of God, as that is 
made known in the person of Christ. It may 
be called the open vision of God, the daily con- 
viction and conception of His presence, — His 
Fatherhood and authority, living under the 
power of His "moral majesty and eternal com- 
passion." It is the glad and loyal friendship 
with Christ; it is the constant recognition of 
man's worth in the light of Bethlehem and 
Calvary. 

The man who rejoices in the light as God's 
greeting, who bears loss as the pressure of the 
Father's hand, to make us conscious of Himself, 
who takes duty whatever its seeming place or 
reward as of immeasurable import, because 
God-sent ; the man who sets Christ ever before 



The Spiritual Life of the Preacher 121 

his face, aspiring after His perfection, striving 
to love what He loves, and hate what He hates ; 
the man who is free from disdain and exclusive- 
ness, who recognizes every one, however despised 
by others, a social outcast or a naked savage, as 
a possible child of God, — that man lives a spir- 
itual life. 

This is the conception of the spiritual life in 
the light of the New Testament and of Christian 
history. 

Such being the nature of the spiritual life, we 
should ask ourselves: "What are the character- 
istics of a true spiritual teacher? What sort of 
a man does the best Christian life expect the 
preacher to be? The world is sensitive to the 
power of a spiritual life. Men open their hearts 
to such a preacher, listen to him, trust him, fol- 
low him; a man who is pervaded by heavenly 
motives, whose love seeks men however un- 
lovely, whose joy is to serve: such a preacher 
will find the hearts of men all about him, and 
he will win a large place for his Master. 

If the church complains of small congrega- 
tions, it is a sign in part of the diminished vi- 
tality of the pulpit. Wherever God's word is 
spoken, men will go to hear it. But it must be 
a living word, not a dull repetition of yester- 
day's; the truth of God fresh and warm and 
pulsating through present life. If God is to 



122 The Spiritual Life of the Preacher 

speak through us, we must be open to Him. 
"If thou wilt separate the precious from the 
vile, then thy mouth shall be as my mouth, 
saith the Lord." To be a man spiritually 
minded, love-constrained, this is back of all the 
conditions of power. 

The first quality of the truly spiritual preacher 
is sincerity. Some minds, independent and 
original minds, pass through painful experiences 
of doubt and conflict. They go to their work 
from the training of the schools, and the contact 
with men and the complex passions and problems 
of life suggest difficulties not felt in seminary 
days. They must examine questions anew; 
they must give themselves to independent study 
of the Scriptures; they must work their own 
way along the path of truth, however uncertain 
the step, and at whatever personal cost. Now 
what shall the minister do in such states of 
mind? The man who first and last is an ec- 
clesiastic more than a seeker of truth, will say 
that such a man has no right in the ministry: 
he must have all his beliefs fixed before thinking 
of the teaching of others. I cannot agree with 
the answer. I should be untrue to God's deal- 
ings with many noble and useful servants if I 
did. You are in His work, and you would not 
be anywhere else. 

You can meet the difficulties manfully by 



The Spiritual Life of the Preacher 123 

prayer and study. You can teach the simplest, 
most essential truths that you have already 
found precious. And you can teach more only 
as fast as you have found out more. The Spirit 
will certainly lead you into the truth, and a 
larger faith you will find your own. I mention 
this possible experience to urge you to abhor 
all mere officialism. Let words stand for things. 
Do not exaggerate your own experiences. Be 
honest with God and with yourselves. Rise 
above slavish imitation, let but one be your 
Master ; speak the message that He gives you, 
and men will learn to trust you, and bring their 
own experiences to you, and receive God's word 
at your mouth. 

A second element of character to be aimed at 
is mental and spiritual unselfishness. It is the 
spirit of Christ, who came not to be ministered 
unto but to minister. It is the spirit that de- 
votes self without reserve, without ambitious 
thought of the future, to the soul-good of men. 
I have called it mental unselfishness, for in the 
intellectual life of ministers is the frequent 
temptation, under the plea of a great and holy 
work, to be essentially lovers of themselves. 

There are great intellectual demands made 
upon the ministry. The tranquil, domestic, 
and social character of his life, bringing the 
natural temptation to indolence, must be re- 



124 The Spiritual Life of the Preacher 

sisted. A manly spirit of self-sacrifice must be 
kept up. He will often need to study when 
other men are asleep or engaged in pleasant 
recreation. Great books must pass like iron 
atoms of the blood into his mental constitu- 
tion. A virile ministry is demanded, that 
shall lay strong grasp upon the reason and 
conscience of men, as well as touch their emo- 
tions. Such a ministry must be in the " strenu- 
ous and perpetual process of an ever increasing 
growth." 

An intellectual pride is easily engendered, the 
exclusive tastes of a cultivated class. And so 
the minister follows his tastes and seeks com- 
panionship in his books, or among the people 
who love the books and tastes that he loves. 
The people are regarded as common and vul- 
gar. When he preaches to them, he preaches 
down to them, and touches them at arm's 
length. He fails, through his intellectual selfish- 
ness, to have that profound respect for man as 
man, that speaks in every act of our Lord, and 
pervades the Scriptures. 

He regards truth to be pursued for itself, 
without immediate regard to its effect upon men. 
So he is interested in books more than in lives; 
in theories and speculations about the truth, 
rather than in truth as the food of life. Every 
truth of revelation has its practical bearing, 



The Spiritual Life of the Preacher 125 

and a system of truth that cannot be preached 
with the purpose of quickening and comforting 
and purifying men is not the truth of God's 
word, but the speculations of the study. 

You must have your hours of study, and you 
guard them jealously; quiet, unbroken hours 
they must be: you turn the key of the study 
door even against wife and children. It takes 
time to follow the subtle trains of thought 
through a chapter of the Epistles. It takes 
time to have an inspiring word grow into its full 
sermonic form; and you have an intellectual 
pride in the fidelity, in the finish of your work. 
Your reputation is at stake, and your advance- 
ment among men. With this true idea of study 
and sermon work, yet over it and mastering it 
the principle, "The man that wants to see me 
is the man I want to see," demands a high 
degree of mental unselfishness. To hear the 
stammering story of some poor woman, to 
answer the cry of distress, patiently to stop 
to answer the doubts of some troubled spirit, to 
have the best hours for study cut in pieces, is 
hard indeed — it takes a soul that is constrained 
by Christ-love. 

"If you can meet such interruptions gal- 
lantly," says the late Bishop F. D. Huntington, 
"nay, more, if you can pass from your books 
and writing table to a poor woman, crying out 



126 The Spiritual Life of the Preacher 

of the coasts of her Tyre on your parish circuit, 
with anything like the look or tone of Him who 
stopped and listened whenever Jew or Gentile 
beggar besought Him, you will be quite as cer- 
tain to appear among His priests and kings here- 
after, as if you had finished out your happy 
train of thought in the handsomest fashion, and 
gruffly told the perplexed parishioner at your 
door to go away and come again at a more con- 
venient season." * 

Spiritual unselfishness was named, though 
the union of the two words may seem anything 
but happy; unselfish spirit in direct Christian 
work. And temptation to selfishness here is in 
the pathway of what seems an essential condi- 
tion of success. 

A man must have decision of character, give 
himself to his ministry with consecration, make 
it his specialty. He must do more than this in 
a general way: he must concentrate himself 
upon his single field; say, this one thing I do. 
And here comes the subtle temptation which 
every minister feels, to a personal and selfish use 
of spiritual power. Devotion may be blind and 
exclusive. The spirit of loyalty may not be 
wholly free from the spirit of idolatry. The 
attitude may be critical and unsympathetic 
towards other ministers and churches, and 

1 "Personal Christian Life in the Ministry," p. 65. 



The Spiritual Life of the Preacher 127 

activity influenced by worldly competition. 
The great thing may be my ministry and my 
church. And zeal for a holy cause insensibly 
dwindles into zeal for self. 

To be known among men as an unselfish man, 
a true minister of Jesus Christ, to seek men not 
for what they have or may bring to us of honor 
or reputation, but for their own good, to do all 
things for the Gospel's sake, this is to have the 
element of spiritual power, this is to be a witness 
for the truth. 

Then humility cannot be omitted from the 
essential qualities of the true preacher. It is 
opposed to vanity and self-seeking, improper 
self-assertion and dogmatism. No class are 
more tempted to vanity than ministers. In 
common with other professions that have to 
do with public audiences, there comes to be a 
fascination in speech, a joy in the conscious 
mastery over the minds of others, a watching 
for their interest and appreciation, that easily 
grows into a false pride. 

"But an hour ago a thousand people hung 
swaying upon the breath that went forth from 
between his lips; their upturned faces offered 
him that most exquisite of flatteries, the rev- 
erence of a great audience for an orator who has 
mastered them. We should remember that the 
religious orator stands, both in privilege and in 



128 The Spiritual Life of the Preacher 

peril ; apart from his kind. He may suffer at 
once the most subtle of human dangers, and the 
deepest of human joys." 1 

What young minister has wholly escaped the 
temptation? The people praise him for the 
qualities of his sermons, and for the hope they 
see in them. It feeds his vanity and he soon 
grows restless without applause. The love of 
praise soon passes into a love of power. And 
then, farewell to the simplicity and openness of 
his spirit ! There is no longer the lowly mind 
of his Master. He becomes a church manager 
and politician. He is dogmatic in his preaching 
and conversation, brooking no opposition to his 
plans, intolerant of differences of opinion. 
Where is the gentleness of the great Apostle 
among men — cherishing them even as a nurse 
cherisheth her children ! 

The minister should have the spirit but not 
the ill manners of Dr. Kirk, of Boston, who 
said to the effusive praise of the morning 
sermon, " Oh, yes, the devil told me that before 
I left the pulpit." 

That was a fine satire of Henry Ward Beech- 
er's at the Herbert Spencer dinner. To a great 
company of scientific men, Mr. Beecher appealed 
to conscience, faith, hope, love in men, divine in 

1 Mrs. Elizabeth Phelps Ward, "A Singular Life," 
p. 274. 



The Spiritual Life of the Preacher 129 

nature and in origin. Dr. Abbott calls it one 
of his great triumphs. A well-known man 
went up and reached out both hands to con- 
gratulate him, and said with something of a 
patronizing tone, " You're the greatest man in 
the world, Mr. Beecher." "You forget your- 
self/' was the quick reply. There must be a 
loss of self in all true service. No man ever 
preached well who was truly thinking how well 
he preached. "The harp of the minstrel," says 
Ruskin, "is untruly touched if his own glory 
is all that it records. The power of the masters 
is shown by their self-annihilation." 

The spiritual preacher should be marked by 
cheerfulness and gravity. I put them together 
as Phillips Brooks did, because they make the 
balance of an earnest and Christian temper. 
Cheerfulness is first, for there are many temp- 
tations in the ministry to depression. And too 
many ministers yield to depression, and talk 
too much about their trials, and think not 
enough about their mercies. As a body they 
have even given to the world the impression 
of melancholy. Galton in his "Hereditary 
Genius" speaks of "the gently complaining 
spirit as characteristic of the Protestant clergy." 
It must be admitted the temptations to depres- 
sion are great. He feels the burdens of souls, 
the sins of the world. It is no wonder that the 



130 The Spiritual Life of the Preacher 

world seems to him robed in sackcloth, — the 
race like one great hospital. 

And the minister is more sensitive than the 
average man by virtue of the nature that has 
called him to the ministry. He has the artistic 
nature; his work is in the emotions. The 
heights of vision and feeling have their heavy 
price in despondency. 

There are peculiar trials in the ministry that 
touch a sensitive nature, — small salary, narrow 
means, fine and pure tastes to be constantly 
denied: the very tools for the best work often 
beyond his reach. If there is anything that 
rasps and frets a sensitive nature it is this. 
He comes to hate the very name and sight of 
money. "That he may be free from worldly 
cares," etc., is the wording of the call put into 
his hands, and yet from the first day of his min- 
istry until the sod is placed over him — except 
by the special grace of God — he may never 
be free from worldly cares. 

"Such are the discouragements of a genuine 
cross-bearing ministry that, without the Mas- 
ter's genuine spirit of self-sacrifice, sooner or 
later the dilettante pulpiteer will throw off the 
burden and begin to seek his ease, or else preach 
for itching ears of phonographic reporters. It 
will require no very strenuous nor heroic spirit 
to go acceptably enough through most of your 



The Spiritual Life of the Preacher 131 

public services; but it is hard to toil without 
visible returns; to see your most sacred en- 
deavors coarsely handled; to find spiritual 
things profanely criticised; to spend wretched 
hours cheerfully, among ignorant, unclean, 
petulant, gossiping, weak-minded people." 
Nothing that I know of will carry one gra- 
ciously and gladly through that but the Christ 
in the heart. And the Christ in the heart should 
lift one out of the weakness of despondency and 
morbid sensitiveness, and sustain a cheerful, 
hopeful, joyous manhood. You are to carry 
good cheer to men ; you are the messenger of glad 
tidings. You cannot lift men up, you cannot 
inspire and lead them to better things, without 
this element of cheer and hope. 

"Why do you judge life by its lowest phase," 
said Professor David Swing of Chicago to a 
young minister of a neighboring church, "or 
measure faith by its low-water mark of depres- 
sion ? If I lose faith in men in one hour in the 
twenty-four, in the twenty-three hours of faith 
I will do my work for humanity." 

With cheerfulness I have put gravity; "op- 
posed equally to pompous solemnity and ir- 
reverent levity, to the clerical prig and the 
clerical buffoon." There are men who think 
the secret of social power is in being a "good 
fellow," who are always joking, telling funny 



132 The Spiritual Life of the Preacher 

stories, turning every great opportunity of life 
to wit. Humor has its happy service in the 
pulpit. The preacher should always be him- 
self. But a pulpit wit is dangerously near to 
moral weakness. Dignity that is not natural, 
that is not the instinctive defence of the sacred- 
ness of personality, that is not the manner of 
an earnest, thoughtful, sincere character, is 
not worth the name. I make no plea for dig- 
nity. Let dignity take care of itself. I simply 
plead for a Christian manhood that feels itself 
too high and noble to trifle with life and oppor- 
tunity. I simply plead for a gravity that means 
"that grave and serious way of looking at life 
which, while it never repels the true light- 
heartedness of pure and trustful hearts, welcomes 
into a manifest sympathy the souls of men who 
are oppressed and burdened, anxious and full 
of questions which, for the time at least, have 
banished all laughter from their faces." 

Patience cannot be omitted from the ideal of 
a spiritual ministry. It is well to remember 
that the word translated patience in the New 
Testament is sometimes rendered hope in the 
Septuagint, and sometimes endurance. The 
patience that holds us to our tasks and sus- 
tains us under burden and trial is made of these 
two strands — hope and endurance. 

We are never to give up hope for ourselves or 



The Spiritual Life of the Preacher 133 

our friends. We are to believe in the larger life 
and the nobler future. We must work with 
this vision ever before our eyes; fight as those 
who hear the shout of those that triumph. 

" Do thou fulfil thy work but as yon wild-fowl do, 
Thou wilt heed no less the wailing, 
Yet hear through it angels singing." 

What if men all about us say, "Who will 
show us any good?" We will turn to God and 
have the light of His countenance upon us. 

If we have hope in our hearts — the joy and 
courage that hope gives, we shall have the grace 
of endurance. We shall hold on and continue 
in our place and work. We shall labor and 
faint not. 

A weakness of the ministry is its impatience, 
impatience with self and with others and our 
work. We wish to sow the seed and reap the 
harvest, to lay the foundations, and put the 
cap-stone on before our sun goes down. 

So many men are unwilling to stay where 
they are the most needed, or until they can 
make any appreciable addition to the Kingdom 
of God. They have their hands to their ears 
that they may not fail to hear the first call to 
a larger field, and they even besiege the doors 
of every vacant pulpit. 

A spiritual man will have the hope to labor 



134 The Spiritual Life of the Preacher 

on whatever the odds against him, or the hard- 
ship of his lot, if he feels that God has given him 
his place and work. I do not see how a man dare 
take the reins of his life into his own hands, who 
believes in God. 

I once went into the observatory of Hamilton 
College to look at some maps which Dr. Peters 
had been making of the stars. For thirty years, 
through all the weary days and shining nights, 
he had been untiring at this work, and had suc- 
ceeded in penning a little corner of the starry 
heavens. "How long will it take you to finish 
your work?" I innocently asked him, and a 
strange light came into his face and a far-away 
look into his eyes as he replied: "Oh, about 
two hundred years!" He never stopped to 
think that one short lifetime would be all too 
short to more than make a beginning of the 
hosts of heaven. He worked on as though all 
the years of God were his. 

If this be the patience of the man of science 
(and it is not an uncommon virtue), whose 
faith is none too certain, the world has the 
right to expect at least an equal patience of those 
who labor in an everlasting Kingdom, and in 
the presence of a living and reigning Lord. 



VII 
THE METHOD OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



OUTLINE 

Maintaining the Spiritual Life. 

Spiritual sensibility the condition of spiritual life. 

The very work of the ministry helpful to the spiritual life. 

The professional spirit fatal to spiritual sensibility. 

Testimony of Chalmers, Maurice, Robertson, Dale. 

Relation of sincerity to spiritual work. 

Time for the cultivation of the spiritual life. 
Ways of Maintaining the Spiritual Life. 

Devotional study of the Bible. 

The habit of daily prayer. 

The power of meditation. 

The influence of nature. 

Christian labor, not efforts at self-culture. 

The simple matter of daily duty. 
The Special Methods of modern times. 

Tendency to special methods. 
"Sinless perfection." 
"The Higher Life." 
"The Holy Spirit for power." 

The limitation of such methods. 

The preacher under the laws of the common Christian life. 
The influence of Spirituality in preaching. 

It gives mental sanity. 

Sustains a holy enthusiasm. 

References : 

Johnson. "The Highest Life." 
Gunsaulus. "Paths to Power." 
Gordon. "Quiet Talks on Power." 
Dean Goulbourne. "Thoughts on Personal Re- 
ligion." 
Hamilton Mabie. "The Life of the Spirit." 



136 



vn 

THE METHOD OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

To be men in spiritual life is the word of 
highest importance for the pulpit. Here we 
come to the climax of the discussion of the per- 
sonality of the preacher. The spiritual life — 
it is the source and sphere of our real manhood, 
up into which we are to take and render of holy 
use every physical and mental power. 

We have found that a spiritual life is the 
attitude of the soul toward God and toward man. 
It is the open, sensitive spirit towards God, the 
vivid sense that we live in His presence, the habit 
of referring everything to Him, and the making 
of His will for us the law and impulse of our 
lives. And towards man it is the fellow-feeling, 
the yearning after their good, the giving of self 
for their help. 

How shall we sustain the spiritual life ? 

It comes from something deeper than formal 
orthodoxy and churchly attachment. It can- 
not be gained by the most rigid adherence to 
the forms of sound doctrine, or the most strenu- 
137 



138 The Method of the Spiritual Life 

ous devotion to the mere externals of religion. 
It is spirit and not form. It is the sacred inner 
life of the soul. 

First of all the preacher is to maintain a 
spiritual sensibility, to keep the spiritual senses 
keen and true and open. This means open to 
the truth and the moral life of men, — the quick- 
est to see and feel truth, to see and feel evil. 
We must be open to the truth in whatever way 
God may bring it to us. Our spiritual desire 
must be kept strong for larger visions of the 
truth, and so fuller measures of God's spirit. 
Some men receive the truth not as a part of 
their life, but as accepted opinion. They do 
not make it theirs by prayerful study and obedi- 
ence, and so grow into desire for the truth, and 
power to apprehend it. Doctrine encloses them 
like the shells of Crustacea, and no other mes- 
sages of God can get to them. We are to be 
living souls, and that means growing souls, and 
not petrifactions. 

The whole work of the ministry should help 
the spiritual life. No class of men have such 
helps as we. In our studies we are constantly 
engaged upon the most vital problems of living. 
Mind and heart are fed. The minister should 
grow to the largest and best man of which he 
is capable. If a shoemaker who is pounding 
pegs into a shoe heel all day long, or a laundry 



The Method of the Spiritual Life 139 

man who has nothing to occupy his thoughts 
but the ironing of two thousand collars a day 
through a series of years, if a lawyer who deals 
with the tricks and evasions of the human mind, 
a doctor who touches the diseases of the race, 
often connected with secret sins, — if such a 
man does not grow by his work purer in his pur- 
pose and more elevated and unselfish, we feel 
no surprise. The spiritual helps must be car- 
ried into his work. He gets no help from him- 
self, from what he does. And sometimes such 
men from the dire necessity of their soul-life 
are driven to God and show finer examples of 
spiritual living than the favored sons of reli- 
gion. A New York clergyman has told of a 
street-car conductor, who by shifts in his runs 
was kept away from home from four in the morn- 
ing until seven at night, and who got up at half- 
past three that he might have the few moments 
of quiet Bible study and prayer. 

How shall our work sustain the spiritual life ? 
That will depend upon the spirit with which we 
do our work, and not on the work itself. 

It is a most real temptation — the dulling of 
spiritual sensibility. Men become careless and 
callous by handling sacred things. How many 
times after the services of God's house are over 
must a man — if he honestly thinks of it — 
convict himself of the professional and per- 



140 The Method of the Spiritual Life 

functory spirit ! He has not realized God's 
presence. He has not had living and vivid con- 
ceptions of the truth he has spoken. He has 
asked and he has not desired. He is busy in 
many directions of parish management, and 
becomes skilled in the details of work, and is 
satisfied with skill in the place of spiritual power. 

In the routine of work there is no little danger 
of self-deception, of exaggeration of spiritual 
experience. We talk about truth, or urge others 
to duties and we take it for granted that we do 
the things ourselves. 

"I have reason to pray and to strive," writes 
Chalmers, "lest the busy routine of operations 
should altogether secularize me. It is a wither- 
ing world, a dry and thirsty land where no 
water is, a place of exile from the fountain of 
life and light that is laid up in the Divinity." 

"There are temperaments naturally gifted 
with clear insight and delicately sensitive to 
the bearings of conduct, who can speak unerr- 
ingly concerning the temptations, danger, and 
aids of living, but whose lives seem none the 
better. Such a character is likely to develop 
special weakness of will, for there is positive 
injury in clear insights that are not obeyed; 
the whole character is cankered by this per- 
sistent failure to live according to one's best 
light, and becomes hollow and hypocritical. 



The Method of the Spiritual Life 141 

There is danger, at least, that the proverb which 
Paulsen quotes shall prove true: 'The man 
who rings the bell cannot march in the pro- 
cession. ' " * 

The noblest souls always feel the danger of 
the loss of spiritual sensibility and strive against 
it. That is a keen criticism of George Eliot's 
on the eminent preacher of Birmingham, Mr. 
George Dawson: "I imagine that it is his for- 
tune, or rather misfortune, to have talked too 
much and too early about the greatest things." 

Robertson always feared the subtle fascina- 
tion there was in an audience, — the intoxication 
of power over others, — and by the most search- 
ing self-examination brought his own life to 
face the truths he had so readily presented to 
others. 

A letter which Dr. Dale wrote from Heidel- 
berg may have a touch of morbidness from ill 
health, but puts the truth in a way we cannot 
forget: " Preaching constantly enfeebles rather 
than strengthens, I fear, the real power of the 
religious affections and the authority of the 
conscience and the divine law; and it is a 
wretched thing to be always conscious that 
even one's own conceptions of what life ought 
to be are not attained. More quiet for thought 
and communion with God are indispensable." 
1 King, " Rational Living." 



142 The Method of the Spiritual Life 

"Is there no danger/' asks Maurice, "that we 
shall play with the most dreadful words as if 
they were counters, shall use the names of 
heaven and hell and God Himself, as if they 
were mere instruments of trade? Is there no 
danger that there shall be nothing answering 
in our acts to our words, that we shall be more 
grovelling than ordinary men in one, in pro- 
portion as we are more magnificent in another?" 

Spiritual callousness through routine accounts 
for the professionalism into which the minister 
comes. There are certain drawbacks into which 
the ministry as a class are brought. There is at 
times an invisible but real barrier raised be- 
tween the people and the minister. "Men, 
women, and parsons," the threefold division of 
humanity, alas has some truth in it. A com- 
pany of well-meaning people out for a holiday 
were seeking an empty compartment in a 
Scotch railway train. "Here are seats," cried 
one, but when a clerical garb appeared in the 
centre of it, they instinctively passed on to 
seek other places. 

The people themselves will sometimes turn 
the most spontaneous human service into a 
formal, professional thing, by saying, " Oh ! 
that's his business." And when this natural 
tendency to professionalism in popular thought 
is increased by a lack of sensitiveness on the 



The Method of the Spiritual Life 143 

part of the minister (the very secret in him of 
professionalism), it becomes a deadly thing. 

Take the sensitiveness to the sins and suffer- 
ings of the people. You cannot get used to 
the shame or dreadfulness of it as a doctor may. 
You must not find relief in the very routine of 
your profession as he may. "The most tender- 
hearted doctor learns to suppress his sympa- 
thies for the sake of his work. A surgeon can- 
not afford to have nerves; he grows efficient 
as he is able to operate mechanically, without 
regard for the pain that it is his duty to inflict. 

"But take the case of a minister who has to 
listen to confessions of sin, such as come unin- 
vited to every good shepherd of souls. No task 
is more repulsive, and it must never grow less 
repulsive. You dare not let familiarity with the 
details of moral disease dull and deaden your 
hatred of what is of itself wrong. Whatever 
skill you may gain to deal with such a case, will 
be in exact proportion to your delicate con- 
science and your keen, passionate sensibility 
to evil. If you once come to look at sin in a 
merely professional light, you will have lost your 
power as a spiritual guide." ! 

How shall we keep ourselves from the deaden- 
ing effect of routine? How shall we keep our- 
selves sensitive to the heavenly influence, to 
1 "Clerical Life," p. 134. 



144 The Method of the Spiritual Life 

the significance of our work, and to the power 
of the truth we declare ? 

The spirit that will transform all work into 
spiritual power is sincerity. Not asking what 
will pay, but what is true. Not, what will 
others think, but what do they need. Not 
being governed by convenience, and policy, and 
expediency, but having such a faith in God, 
that we shall seek to know and do His truth 
and nothing else. Sincerity will always seek 
the personal application of the truth. We 
shall preach to ourselves as well as others. 
Like the Jewish priest we shall offer sacrifices 
first for self. What has this truth for me ? Am 
I willing to be all that this truth is fitted to 
make me? What are the tendencies and laws 
and habits of my nature that prevent the action 
of God's Spirit in transforming truth into life 
in my case? Such truthfulness will make the 
soul a sensitive plate on which our very work, 
touching as it does the sources and materials of 
the spiritual life, will place the impress of God 
and His Kingdom of Grace. 

And such honest application of the truth, as 
we study, and prepare our message, and get 
ready for our part in the worship of God's 
house, will make the soul very sensitive. The 
soul will lie open in its own deep need, and a 
reality will be given to words and acts of worship, 



The Method of the Spiritual Life 145 

and the truth that feeds men will feed the 
preacher. 

Then we must take time to cultivate the spir- 
itual life. The age is weak on the contemplative 
side. The sharp competitions, the intellectual 
and social ambitions, even the religious activi- 
ties, may satisfy us with doing rather than with 
being, with conventionalities in the place of 
spirit. They sometimes rob us of God and self. 
They have taken away something of the soul- 
quiet and the soul-joy. The minister, above all 
men, must have moments of silence, of separa- 
tion from men, when he feels the fresh dew on 
the pages of the Word, and hears the gracious 
whisper of God in the closet. Spiritual sensibil- 
ity and power come from moments of devout 
retreat, from conscious and eager communion 
with God, from devout meditation on the reve- 
lations of God, above all from the loving and 
adoring gaze upon the face of the Christ. The 
man who rarely is alone, who rarely salutes 
himself and sees what his soul doth love, who 
is always in the full sight and hearing of the 
world, can have no profound thought, cannot 
be deepened and purified and strengthened from 
the unseen springs of life. " You have to be 
busy men, with many distractions, with time 
not your own ; and yet, if you are to be anything, 
there is one thing you must secure. You must 



146 The Method of the Spiritual Life 

have time to enter into your own heart, and be 
quiet, you must learn to collect yourselves, to 
be alone with yourselves, alone with your own 
thoughts, alone with eternal realities which are 
behind the rush and confusion of moral things, 
alone with God. You must learn to shut your 
door on all your energy, on all your interests, 
on your hopes and fears and cares, and in the 
silence of your chamber to possess your soul. 
You must learn to look below the surface; to 
sow the seed which you will never reap; to 
hear loud voices against you, or seducive ones, 
and to find in your own heart the assurance and 
the spell which makes them vain. Whatever 
you do, part not with the inner sacred life of 
the soul, whereby we live within to things not 
seen, to Christ and truth and immortality." — 
Dean Church. 
The cultivation of the spiritual life means : 
The devotional study of the Bible. All we 
do to master the books, their place, history, 
persons, teachings, is food for the spiritual life. 
It is a false issue to array devotional study 
against critical. A true exegesis need never 
be anything else than a spiritual help. But 
there is a study of the Bible that is more per- 
sonal, that takes those parts where there is the 
fullest revelation of God and the soul's duty 
and privilege, that seeks thereby to have the 



The Method of the Spiritual Life 147 

sense of God made more mastering and gain 
the inspiration for duty. The spiritual power 
of men does not depend strictly upon their 
scholarly knowledge of the Scriptures and Bibli- 
cal literature. Some men know less and be- 
lieve less, but what they hold they hold vividly. 
The Lord is ever before their face. Here is 
where so-called devotional reading has its 
chief value, — to revive our consciousness of 
God, and bring daily upon the soul the heavenly 
sanctions and inspirations to holy living. 

It is more helpful to take a single truth and 
dwell upon it until it becomes food — a part of 
our spiritual culture. 

And the thought of some prophetic soul upon 
Bible truth may be as truly food as our reading 
of Scripture. The devout classics may be put 
only second to the Bible. And in the list of 
devout classics should be found the great poems 
or essays that deal with the problems of the 
soul, and give the divine interpretation to 
nature and human experience. Browning's 
"Saul" has sustained more than one life when 
the lamp of faith burned low. " And Tennyson 
is become as one of the prophets, a witness for 
God and for immortality.' ' 

The habit of daily prayer. 

It is not a matter for one to lay down rules 
for another. We want prayer genuine and 



148 The Method of the Spiritual Life 

spontaneous. There are no barriers between 
the soul and God but sin, and the fellowship 
may never be broken, the desire may reach God 
anywhere and at any time. In the picture of 
the New Jerusalem there is no temple, — all 
life will be fellowship, and all service worship. 
But we shall be best fitted for the life of the un- 
templed City of God by scrupulous fidelity to 
the habit of worship now. "It is not safe to 
leave the matter to the disposal of a planless 
sentiment. When we have prayed a deliberate 
and, if you please, formal prayer in the morn- 
ing, we shall be far more likely to have a thought 
slipping Godwards from time to time, in the 
push and distractions of our work, than if the 
day begins without some such formal devote- 
ment of ourselves before Him. It is easy to 
ridicule the formality of it, but the chances all 
are that you will have nothing better than that 
without that. There is peril in cutting loose 
from the habitual and stated. Disposition 
needs training. Character is impulse that has 
been reined down into steady continuance. Set 
times for meeting God help develop in us set 
times for wanting to meet him." — Parkhurst. 
Take the work we have to do, — worthless 
without the ceaseless aid of the Holy Spirit, 
— and the argument for habit in prayer is 
unanswerable. 



The Method of the Spiritual Life 149 

The soul-quiet, the separation from the world, 
means time for meditation. Meditation is not 
re very, that sweet doing-nothing of thought. 
It means definite thought, plan, concentration 
of mind. It is the long and earnest brooding 
of thought, the strong and steady grasp of ideas, 
holding them up in their relations and their 
sweep, holding them before the mind until they 
become vivid, all-possessing realities. " All pro- 
found and authentic power, intellectual or 
imaginative, moral or spiritual, is rooted in 
attention." The "wise passiveness" of Words- 
worth, by which he meant profound and per- 
sistent attention of thought and will, was the 
source of his personal spiritual commerce with 
nature. 

"There is no substitute for meditation. It 
is the most invigorating of heart tonics. And 
the stimulation is not quickly spent. It is 
not like a spur ; it is more like blood transfused, 
or like a medicine which is also a food. The 
aspirant for the highest life must 'think on 
these things.' If he does, he will find, in think- 
ing of them, a zest which increases with famil- 
iarity. Rare and beautiful is the grace of 
unswerving steadiness of soul. Mr. Greatheart 
is needed in every company that goes on pil- 
grimage. Reflection on the highest certainties 
is what keeps the courage high and the spirit 



150 The Method of the Spiritual Life 

serene. Affliction is light and works a weight 
of glory ; we faint not though our outward man 
perish, providing we look at the things which 
are not seen. This was Christ's own way. For 
the joy set before Him, he endured the cross, 
and so we are to look unto Him. A firm and 
quiet spirit will surely be the ornament of an 
attentive and thoughtful mind." * 

"To get at the heart of books," says Hamilton 
Mabie, "we must live with and in them; we 
must make them our constant companions; 
we must turn them over and over in thought, 
slowly penetrating their inmost meaning; and 
when we possess their thought we must work it 
into our own thought. The reading of a real 
book ought to be an event in one's history; it 
ought to enlarge the vision, deepen the base of 
conviction, and add to the reader whatever 
knowledge, insight, beauty, and power it 
contains. 

"It is possible to be mentally active and in- 
tellectually poor and sterile, to drive the mind 
along certain courses of work, but to have no 
deep life of thought behind these calculated ac- 
tivities. The life of the mind is rich and fruit- 
ful only when thought, released from specific 
tasks, flies at once to great themes as its natural 
objects of interest and love, its natural sources 

1 Johnson, "The Highest Life," p. 121. 



The Method of the Spiritual Life 151 

of refreshment and strength. Under all our 
definite activities there runs a stream of medi- 
tation, and the character of that meditation 
determines our wealth or our poverty, our pro- 
ductiveness or our sterility. " 

The strength and productiveness of the spir- 
itual life depend upon the life of thought 
centred in the person of Christ. 

To many persons it is a help to the spiritual 
life, now and then, to go from the paths of men 
to the ways of nature. It helps to break the 
bondage of custom. The scales fall from the 
eyes. And the silent and beneficent ministers 
of growth are felt to be the ways of God. Isaiah 
revived the faith of the captives by the sight 
of the steadfast stars, and Jesus taught the 
certainties of the Father's care from the minute- 
ness of the operations of nature. And to a 
mind oppressed by the problems of sin and 
suffering, or confused by the babel of human 
opinions, there is healing and strength in the 
simplicity and freedom of the outer world. 

Like music, or any great art, it may perform 
a spiritual service in breaking in on our wonted 
states, detaching the mind from its worldly 
atmosphere, and, through its unwonted states, 
opening channels for the Spirit of God. There 
is a spiritual uplift in a mountain peak, or the 
sweep of the sea. In the heart of a great forest 



152 The Method of the Spiritual Life 

a man may get a calm look at himself and his 
work, and understand the word of the Lord as 
he cannot in the crowded and noisy ways. 

In the story of Kate Carnegie, the young 
minister used to go across the fields to a service 
Sunday afternoon in a distant part of his parish. 
And Dr. Watson finely says that the sermons 
prepared out-of-doors were his best sermons. 
"The fields and forests delivered his mind from 
many of the foolish notions of the schools, and 
he heard the Master speak, — as He used to 
speak among the fields of corn." 

The man who has the mind of Christ can 
never be absorbed with theories and practices 
of self-culture. The true disciple does not 
think much of saving his own soul. He is too 
intent upon the Father's business for that. 
The test of spirituality is service, and it is also 
the highest means to it. There is no spiritual 
culture so fine as ministering to others, in the 
name of Christ. 

"For the highest life nothing is more indis- 
pensable than Christian labor. This is taught 
in the most explicit way by our Lord. He 
unfolds at large the relation of intimacy in 
which he would remain with his disciples. It 
should be organic, vital, like that of a vine to 
its branches. But almost every verse in that 
wonderful passage tells us that the branches 



The Method of the Spiritual Life 153 

are in the vine for the sake of fruit, and will be 
allowed to remain there only on condition of 
fruit-bearing. So shall we be Christ's disciples, 
and so shall his joy be in us. Work, work, this 
is health, and growth, and life." * 

I have not exhausted the ways of maintaining 
the spiritual life; but I have spoken amiss if I 
have given the impression that it is a complex 
matter, and depends upon the doing of many 
things. 

It is a simple matter, the step by step of daily 
life. We are to trust God's guidance, that He 
will bless the use of natural means; that His 
power, the life of the Spirit, comes not with 
our forced effort or impatient demands, but 
with our attitude of obedience to His will. 
Duty is the path of spiritual life and power. 

It may cause surprise to some that the dis- 
cussion of the spiritual life has not emphasized 
the marks of what is termed "a spirit-filled 
life." But the New Testament knows no 
esoteric religion, and the marks of the Christian 
preacher are traits in unmistakable light that 
should belong to all the friends of Christ. The 
Spirit of God cannot be distinguished from the 
human spirit, save by its effects: the Divine 
person cannot be put under investigation and 
1 Johnson, "The Highest Life," p. 125. 



154 The Method of the Spiritual Life 

analysis — He is known only by the fruit of the 
Spirit. 

And while certain men peculiarly endowed 
may have unusual marks of spiritual power, the 
New Testament ideal of character in the pulpit 
may be reached by the simple and natural 
means graciously offered to all. The conclu- 
sion of the question as to the person of the 
preacher, is that the prime qualification is 
character. The Holy Spirit is the Lord the 
Giver of life, and He helps us to live by show- 
ing us the truth and helping us to obey it, and 
so He lives and works in our life. 

There has been no special method of the 
spiritual life suggested for the pulpit. The 
preacher as a leader is simply to be a marked 
spiritual man, under no different or higher law 
than the common Christian, — simply an exam- 
ple of the " abundant life" that Christ gives to 
men. 

But we hear the emphasis placed upon special 
methods of the spiritual life. Conferences are 
held for the deepening of the spiritual life. 
Certain teachers are hailed as apostles of the 
higher life. Ministers gather in devout retreats 
and earnestly inquire the secret of power. 
Men painfully feel the limitation of their lives 
and grasp at any promise of larger and more 
useful life. 



The Method of the Spiritual Life 155 

Certain stages can be marked in modern 
times in the conception of the spiritual life and 
struggle for it; each partial, carrying its own 
limitation, but each an appreciable advance in 
largeness of truth and promise of use to the 
pulpit. 

For a hundred years the doctrine of Sinless 
Perfection was taught as the highest conception 
of the spiritual life. It was possible by special 
act of consecration and the gift of the Holy 
Spirit to reach a height above sin. This phase 
passed away, not so much because it was re- 
futed by Scripture, as disproved by practical 
life. Those who claimed to be perfect were not 
the real saints of the world; the saints were 
the simple, devoted lives who were never think- 
ing of their own state, but how they might bless 
other lives — giving no sign and asking for 
none. "The nearer men are to being sinless, 
the less they talk about it." 

Within the memory of living men the advo- 
cates of the Higher Life were making their 
impress upon some of the finest, most sensitive 
minds of the church. It was not sinless per- 
fection, but freedom from all known sin. Entire 
consecration would be followed by complete 
assurance, a special act of submission by the 
second blessing, the baptism of the Spirit. It 
was too subjective and introspective : far better 



156 The Method of the Spiritual Life 

to look away from all emotional self-culture to 
the great objects of faith and service. 

And to-day there is an active propaganda of 
a new phase of the higher life. Its teachers are 
not entirely one in their tone and emphasis. 
Some are more subjective than others. But 
the very age, its practical spirit and tests, and 
the tremendous forces that prevent the progress 
of Christianity and the comparatively slight 
impress made by the church upon the world, 
considering the agencies at work, all have 
turned the thought of certain advocates of the 
higher life, notably represented by Keswick 
and Northfield, to the subjective conditions for 
greater spiritual effectiveness. The words of 
Christ recorded in the first chapter of the Acts 
have been the keynote of their thought. " Tarry 
ye . . . until ye be endued with power from on 
high." The Holy Spirit for service, the Holy 
Spirit for power — is the reiterated word of 
these earnest men. To get and use the power 
of God, the Holy Spirit stored in Christ, is their 
purpose. To quote the words of Mr. Meyer: 
"As soon as you link to it (the Holy Spirit) not 
you, but the power of God through you, will 
repeat the marvels of Pentecost." And another, 
using the story of Gideon to enforce the same 
lesson, says, "Gideon's personality was merely 
a suit of clothes which God wore that day in 



The Method of the Spiritual Life 157 

achieving the tremendous victory of His people." 
The promise of them all is that the Holy Spirit 
is given for power. And in the earnest desire 
to get this power, certain definite rules are laid 
down, — perhaps better say, certain definite 
conditions are insisted upon. Using physical 
analogies, certain acts, as casting out all known 
sin, complete surrender to the will of God — 
under one teacher these are developed into 
seven definite stages, before there can be the 
infilling and so the complete use of the person 
by the Holy Spirit. 

The statement of such methods suggests their 
limitations. 

In the interpretation of Scripture they 
sometimes combine the hardest literalism of 
figurative writings with the most lawless spirit- 
ualizing of the plain statements. 

In the desire for power, they limit the use of 
truth and personality to the Scripture, ignoring 
the wealth of human interest and spiritual 
lesson in literature and art and human enter- 
prise, and the pulpit as the noblest inter- 
preter and educator of life. 

In aiming at the conscious power of the Spirit 
they are teaching an impossible psychology and 
ignoringthe variety and limitation of personality. 
God and man work together. We are ever 
working out what God is working in. The 



158 The Method of the Spiritual Life 

Spirit of God is ever giving the thought and 
impulse that we are trying to carry out in our 
lives. The fruit of the spirit is ripened by 
sudden and tropical showers, and again, and far 
oftener, by still, dewy nights and long summer 
days. 

Only a few natures, men of peculiar tempera- 
ment and experience, can ever expect the sudden 
disclosures of spiritual truth, the sudden in- 
rushing of spiritual power; the vast majority 
of men in the pulpit must take the common 
paths of the spiritual life, fixing the thought 
upon the things of Christ, setting the affections 
upon things above, using their wills in the daily 
choice of the mind of Christ; conscientious 
study, prayerful obedience, loving service of 
men, — then a man's life will certainly grow in 
the grace and knowledge of Christ, and he shall 
have the largest life and power possible for him. 

We are to be grateful for the new emphasis 
upon service, as marking the larger conception 
of the spiritual life, and we are to take to heart 
the lessons so earnestly and so persuasively 
repeated, that the Spirit can make the largest 
use of a life only that hates the evil and loves 
the good and makes the Kingdom of God the 
supreme choice. Life is not for power, but power 
is the issue of life. 

An old Scotch minister touched the heart of 



The Method of the Spiritual Life 159 

the matter, when he said in a charge to a young 
man: 

"The great purpose for which a minister is 
settled in a parish is not to cultivate scholar- 
ship, or to visit the people during the week, or 
even to preach to them on Sunday ; but it is to 
live among them as a good man, whose mere 
presence is a demonstration that cannot be 
gainsaid, that there is a life possible on earth 
which is fed from no earthly source, and that 
the things spoken of in church on Sundays are 
realities." 

I express our deepest need when I say we 
are to strive to be men in spiritual life. 

Spirituality will give mental sanity. It 
pierces through the accidental and human to the 
essential, the universal, and the eternal. It 
can neither be indifferent nor intolerant. With 
broader vision is simpler and stronger faith. 
It grows not alone 

"... In power 
And knowledge, but by year and hour 
In reverence and in charity." 

Spirituality will sustain a holy enthusiasm 
for our work and for humanity. We must 
catch the charm and inspiration of a higher 
world than self, or we shall succumb to the hard 
routine of our task. We must catch the vision 



160 The Method of the Spiritual Life 

of God's thought of man, if we are to be saved 
from the estimates of society, and the narrow- 
ness of cultured taste, and be the servants of 
mankind. We must live on the ideal side, if 
we are to be masters of truth and masters of 
human hearts. The powers of the heavenly 
world were felt in every act of our Lord. " Jesus, 
knowing that he was come from God and went 
to God, took a towel and girded himself,' ' 
and ministered in lowliest office. The whole 
arch of heaven bends over every act of holy 
service. 

We are to be men in spiritual life, not an- 
gels ; in touch with men, not above them. Not 
preaching an isolated and repellent piety, but 
bringing the world of heavenly ideals and inspi- 
rations into the life of the common day. The 
words of Kipling apply to the preacher as well 
as to every other genuine toiler: 

"Go to your work and be strong, halting not in your 

ways, 
Balking the end half-won, for an instant dole of 

praise. 
Stand to your work and be wise, certain of word and 

pen, 
Who are neither children nor gods, but men in a 

world of men." 



PART II 

THE MESSAGE 



'The word had breath, and wrought 
With human hands the creed of creeds, 
In loveliness of perfect deeds, 
More strong than all poetic thought." 

— Tennyson. 



162 



VIII 
THE AUTHORITY OF THE MESSAGE 



OUTLINE 

The Preacher the man with a Message. 
Definition of Authority in preaching. 

The nature of Authority seen in a study of the Prophet's spirit. 
Comparison of the priestly and prophetic functions in re- 
ligion. 
The prophets taught the simplicity, the practical and un- 
selfish nature of religion. 
They were the great interpreters of life, the life of God and 

man. 
The prophetic spirit an abiding spirit in the church. 
The preacher essentially a prophet — the Christian proph- 
ets. 
The prophet's spirit connected with a great experience. 
The authority of the word lies in the experience of the soul. 
Examples of prophetic experience. 
The ways of getting the Authority of Experience. 
The relation between Objective and Subjective Authority in 
the Message; between Christ and the Preacher's expe- 



References : 



Abbott. 
Horton. 
Watson. 

Greer. ' 
Smith. 



"The Christian Ministry." Lect. 3. 

"Verbum Dei." Lect. 2-7. 

"God's Message to the Human Soul." 

Lect. 4. 
The Preacher and his Place." Lect. 3. 
'Modern Criticism and the Preaching 

of the Old Testament." Lect. 7. 



164 



VIII 

THE AUTHORITY OF THE MESSAGE, OR 
THE PROPHET'S SPIRIT 

The distinguishing mark of the preacher is 
that he is a man with a message. He must have 
a word that he has thought out and felt and 
appropriated to his own life, so that it has 
become his word, the expression of his life ; and 
it must be a message he feels so important for the 
life of men, that he must speak it out. A real 
message of God is a dominating and impelling 
power. It must be spoken whether men hear or 
forbear. Without the sense of message a man 
had better not speak at all. Whatever be his 
own choice or the ordination of human hands, 
without the sense of message he is not chosen 
of God to proclaim His word. Without the 
sense of message, he lacks the sustaining impulse 
of his vocation and the mastery over the minds 
and hearts of men. 

What gives to the preacher's word a living 
and life-giving power? Is it the power of an 

165 



166 The Authority of the Message 

organization of which he is an accredited mem- 
ber ? Is it the power of a body of writings held 
by the Church to give the Word of God, and of 
which the preacher is thought to be the inter- 
preter ? Is the authority of his message exter- 
nal to himself, so that without regard to his 
personality, his character or convictions, his 
message produces its divine effect? Or is it 
inseparable from his own person, not external 
but inner? 

Authority is not in the claim or the right to 
command the obedience of men, but in the in- 
fluence that lays hold of other lives, in that 
which finds men, to use the significant word of 
Coleridge. 

"The real secret of our authority must lie in 
our own consciousness of sin forgiven and life 
imparted by an ever-present God, and in our 
power to reproduce in other souls the life which 
God has produced in our own." * 

Whence comes the authority of our message ? 
We may find an answer in the study of the 
prophet' s spirit. 

There are two functions in religion, the priestly 
and the prophetic. The priestly has to do with 
the forms of life, the prophetic with its spirit. 

We cannot ignore or despise the priestly 
function in religion. Life must have form. 

1 Abbott, "Christian Ministry," p. 106. 



The Authority of the Message 167 

If men think upon religious truth, their ideas 
must take clear, consistent statement. Creed 
is the form of doctrine. The creeds mark the 
thought of the Church, hold the mind to essential 
truth amid conflicting opinion, and are the steps 
by which the understanding passes on in its 
apprehension of God. 

If men worship, they must have their fixed 
places and times and rites. Nothing should be 
so free and spontaneous as prayer. But the 
life that has no fixed habit of prayer will at last 
lose all desire for prayer. 

If men hold great truths in common and 
worship together and cooperate for a common 
end, they must have associated life. The organ- 
ization of the church is as much a law of life 
as the functional organization of the human 
body. The priestly function conducts and 
sustains these essential forms of life. Religion 
is partly habit. The child that gets by heart 
the exact form of Scripture words has the lines 
of habit formed along which the Holy Spirit 
may flash the meaning and life of the truth itself. 
The sense of God in His world, the fields and 
the forests and the thousand living things, all 
praising God, will come permanently, as a habit 
of thought, to the man who remembers the 
Sabbath and forgets not to make his way to 
God's house. 



168 The Authority of the Message 

These earthly names that now divide us, 
Luther and Calvin and Wesley, and all the rest, 
will be forgotten or fade away in the light of the 
one name above every other. But God has 
spoken through these human teachers, there has 
been a providential emphasis upon doctrine or 
polity or endeavor; and we shall soonest reach 
the charity and life of the perfected kingdom 
by loyalty to the truth and opportunity within 
our own reach. 

There is power in methodical piety. The 
training of a life begins by rule, and we 
only reach the liberty of the spirit by habitual 
obedience. 

But the priestly function, apart from the pro- 
phetic, cannot produce and sustain the life of 
God in the soul. It tends to magnify the form 
and forget the spirit. It would test life by its 
Shibboleths, piety by its rituals, and loyalty to 
the Kingdom by zeal for a church. Over- 
emphasis upon form has always the temptation 
to unreality. There may be religiosity with 
little vital religion. 

The priestly function dwells upon that ob- 
jective truth and form, connected with the be- 
ginnings of spiritual life, and not enough upon 
the truths that form and perfect character. 
It may make religion an insurance policy rather 
than the culture of the soul. It separates life 



The Authority of the Message 169 

into secular and sacred. It is punctilious about 
so-called religious duties, — feels safe if they 
are performed, " tithes the mint, anise, and 
cummin/' and is careless of the weightier mat- 
ters, " judgment, mercy, and faith." It denies 
God by practically shutting Him out of a large 
part of life. He is God of the hills, of holy 
moments and places, but not of the valleys, 
where men toil and are tried and suffer. 

The priestly spirit has often been proud of 
God's favor, and forgot the ministry of God's 
grace. Spiritual pride and class and race 
pride have been strangely blended. Trusting 
in God's election, claiming special privilege, 
it has forgotten that election is for service, — 
the few chosen that they may be the world's 
helpers. Its vision has sometimes been shut 
up to self, narrowly individual, and indifferent 
to the multitudes. 

Formality, superficiality, and exclusiveness have 
been the evils that have grown up where the 
priest was the sole leader of religion. 

And so God has raised up the prophets to 
correct priestly tendencies and to give the 
balance of truth and life. 

The prophets ever taught the simplicity and 
spirituality of religion. They interpreted the 
meaning of temple and sacrifice and law and 
ritual. They were ever breaking through the 



170 The Authority of the Message 

crust of behavior and finding the heart and 
sustaining its God-given principles and motives. 

They taught the practical nature of religion. 
Sacrifice was good, but mercy and truth were 
better. Worship was to make life religious. 
And if life were not changed, if it were cold and 
selfish and sensual, the very worship was a 
mockery. 

The prophets taught the unselfish nature of 
religion. It was not simply for the soul's own 
culture, for individual favor and blessing of the 
Holy One, but that the family and the commu- 
nity might be sweetened and enriched. They 
broke through race pride and prejudice, and 
taught the truths of humanity, gave glimpses 
of the wants and hopes of mankind, pleaded 
with Jerusalem for the sake of the world. 

They are the teachers of the Messiah : first a 
national hope, the day of renewed and enlarged 
national life, growing with the years clearer 
and more specific until it takes the form of a 
person, a Son of David, an everlasting King, 
a Prince of Peace. 

The walls of Jewish exclusiveness are broken 
down and the Messiah is the desire of all nations, 
the hope of the world. 

So the work of the prophets is ever spiritual, 
not formal. They make God known — the 
one real, controlling person of the world and of 



The Authority of the Message 171 

human life: God in His moral attributes, in 
His great purpose, manifest in all His dealings, 
to make men righteous. 

They make man known, the essential nature 
and worth of man: man stripped of all the 
accidents of life ; man lifted up into the light of 
God and so to a true self-knowledge. 

So the prophets are the great interpreters of 
life, — they tell men about themselves ; they 
search their age, and analyze it ; they hold the 
picture up before the eyes of the generation that 
men may see whither they are tending, may see 
those great lines of moral and spiritual conduct 
that are as essential as the laws of nature. 

They were men among men, knew their gen- 
eration, and in its wants found their message. 
They believed that the battle with sin had to 
be fought out here, that the righteous life of the 
individual signified and involved the righteous 
life of society. 

They were philanthropists and patriots be- 
cause they were prophets. Love of man and 
country, pure and passionate, pulses in the 
speech of all of them. Whatever concerned 
man, work and family, houses and lands' and 
government, concerned the moral nature of 
man and so was a matter of religion. Religion 
was coterminous with life. The laws of God 
were to be made universal and absolute. 



172 The Authority of the Message 

And the authority of the prophets was in the 
fact that God had spoken to them, not especially 
in signs and wonders, but in the heart and life 
of each. The word of God came through their 
own life. The rough shepherd life of Amos, the 
simplicity and certainty of nature's processes, 
gave him his message to the sensuous, selfish, 
cruel life of degenerate Israel. And Hosea found 
the compassionate love of Jehovah in his own 
home love, betrayed, beaten, but unconquerable. 

Creed and rite and temple are holy, but the 
prophet must breathe into them the spirit of the 
Divine life. The offices of religion are expres- 
sions of the soul and ministrative of its higher 
life, only as this living spirit is within the wheels. 
The health of social national life depends upon 
the prophet's spirit. "Where there is no 
vision, the people cast off restraint." When 
no pure and fearless soul has an unclouded 
vision of God, and gives the truth that opens 
anew the meaning of God's plan and searches 
deeper into the consciousness of men, then 
religion becomes formalism, its vital forces are 
spent; the evil elements of life grow bold, and 
there is an ebb in the flow of God's Kingdom. 
The open vision points to the open path of prog- 
ress. The vision of the prophet's life reveals 
the source and power of his word. Tennyson's 
poem is a true picture of the prophet : 



The Authority of the Message 173 

"He saw thro' life and death, thro' good and ill, 
He saw thro' his own soul. 

The vision of the eternal will an open scroll before 
him lay." 

The prophet's spirit is to be an abiding spirit. 
The work did not close with the Old Testament 
prophets. They were essentially forth-tellers, 
speakers for God, and the Spirit of God gave 
them their message. There is need of the vital, 
interpretative speaking for God, — and the 
Holy Spirit will give the message. 

There have been Christian prophets. The 
apostles were such. They testified of what they 
had seen and heard. Their message grew with 
their spiritual growth. The flavor and empha- 
sis of the word came from the nature and 
experience of each. The needs of churches and 
the life of the age providentially directed the 
unfolding of truth. Their message was pro- 
phetic, the interpretation of the life of God in 
the souls of men. The very word lives in the 
New Testament. And all the words used for the 
Christian ministry, such as herald and witness, 
have in them the essential idea of the prophet. 

The message is the same, yet ever new. The 
truth of Christ is the eternal, immutable truth, 
yet with endless form and application, living 
principles unfolding with the varying necessities 
and conditions of the human race. 



174 The Authority of the Message 

Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and 
forever. He is the Alpha and Omega of truth 
and life. But the understanding of Christ 
grows in the experience of every true Christian, 
and from age to age in the experience of the 
Church. It is a narrow, egotistic conception of 
the Gospel to hold that our philosophy of truth, 
our special viewpoint, is the unchanging one. 
The world has come by many painful steps to 
its present knowledge of Christ and His salva- 
tion, and the message-getting and message- 
bringing is not all over. Any one familiar with 
the history of Christian doctrine knows its 
gradual development in the life of the Church. 
Here truth has been brought out from the 
shadow, the conception of it made sharp and 
clear by prayer and meditation and contest 
and service. Here emphasis has rested upon a 
different aspect of truth, that in the end better 
proportion might be secured. There truth has 
been carried into a larger sphere, followed to 
its logical outcome, or applied to some new 
condition and need of the age. 

Such unfolding of the principles of Christ 
must ever go on to meet the growing intellectual 
and social life of men. The simplicity of the 
truth in Christ must not be reduced to the 
natural or wilful ignorance of a church or gen- 
eration. "To preach the simple Gospel" is a 



The Authority of the Message 175 

false and misleading cry when it means the end- 
less and wearisome repetition of a few accepted 
truths concerning Christ ; and fails to make this 
divine life live again among men, throwing the 
light of God's mind upon all our standards and 
motives, our activities and conventions. 

Men may have small ideas of the infinite reach 
of redemption ! Surely Christ has a message 
for an age that carries at times the methods of 
the market into the courts of the temple; or 
rather that refuses to carry the vision of the 
temple into the shop and the counting-room. 

Christianity has a message for men who try to 
hold in one hand the promises of eternal life, 
and grip even harder with the other all that the 
selfish and inhuman fingers of mammon can hold ; 
who buy and sell men in the same market with 
their coal and their iron; who live in luxury 
and even build churches and other noble forms 
of religion out of conditions in which thousands 
of the children of God are forced to live little 
above the beasts of the field. 

Christianity has a social message. The Spirit 
of God is certainly bringing out this side of 
truth to all who have eyes to see. When it 
demands repentance from sin, it may mean our 
complicity with unholy customs and unjust 
laws that make virtue hard and vice almost 
inevitable. It may be as reprehensible for the 



176 The Authority of the Message 

minister of Christ to take no account of social 
conditions as for the doctor to care nothing for 
sanitary welfare — simply to stick to his individ- 
ual cases. If we are anxious for nothing but to 
know the truth and to proclaim it ; lovingly and 
fully, we shall have a message. 

For the Spirit of God, the spirit of truth, is 
watching over all thought and life, all contest and 
ministry, guiding the researches of the great 
scholars, the obedient step of the humble follow- 
ers, and the service of every one who loves his 
fellow-men, that at last Christ may have the pre- 
eminence. 

Notice a few of the noble lives through whom 
God has spoken, — the prophets of the Christian 
church. 

Clement brought out the immanence of God, 
God not simply transcendent, above all and 
Lord of all, but in touch with every life, His 
presence the very life of the world. 

Augustine dwelt upon the sovereignty of 
God, God the source of good. 

Luther taught the world the personal relation 
of the individual soul to God and the freedom 
of the conscience. 

Wesley's message was the boundless grace of 
God — sufficient for the lowest : Christ a mighty 
Saviour, saving from the uttermost to the utter- 
most. 



The Authority of the Message 111 

And Phillips Brooks has left his word of God, 
that our generation will not soon forget : that 
man though a prodigal is everywhere and always 
a son; and the fulness and glory of the life of 
sons. 

All these men were prophets. 

It is at a long distance that most men follow 
such prophetic souls. But this cannot lessen the 
truth of privilege and duty. Every man fit to 
stand in the pulpit must be in his own way and 
degree a prophet. He must receive the word of 
God. He has no light on coming events, he 
has no new Gospel to give; but he is a forth- 
teller for God, he must speak plainly and faith- 
fully the message God gives him. He must 
reexpress the old Gospel in the thought and 
speech of his own age, so that men can receive 
it. The Christian preacher must make God 
known ; he must in some way open the heavens, 
give eyes to this peering, questioning age, and 
make God real; he must make man known 
to himself; he must work his way through the 
discussions and activities and conventions of 
life, and lay hold of the soul ; he must impress 
men with the radical and sovereign nature of 
the Gospel remedy, the thoroughness and reach 
of the Christian truth, stopping short of nothing 
less than the sanctification of life, the redemp- 
tion of the world. 



178 The Authority of the Message 

Nothing but the prophet's spirit can do this. 
How can the modern preacher have the proph- 
et's spirit, and so the word of authority? 
Some typical experiences of the Bible may give 
the answer. The prophet's spirit is always con- 
nected with a great experience. The authority 
of the prophet's word lies in this experience of 
the soul. The aged Elijah said to the younger 
man, Elisha, "Ask what I shall do for thee, 
before I be taken away from thee;" and the 
younger, catching some vision of the work to 
be done and feeling his need, asked for the best 
thing possible, " I pray thee let a double portion 
of thy spirit be upon me." "Thou hast asked 
a hard thing," said Elijah, "nevertheless, if 
thou see me when I am taken from thee, it 
shall be so unto thee ; but if not, it shall not be 
so." The gift was conditioned upon his close 
personal following to the very end. And so, 
though Elijah repeatedly tested the sincerity 
and thoroughness of the desire, nothing could 
shake off the attendance of Elisha, and he was 
present at the striking and triumphant close of 
Elijah's prophetic career. He saw the heavens 
open, and the translation of Elijah in the 
chariot and horses of fire. The narrative 
teaches this truth. He had a great experience 
of the reality of God and the spiritual world, 
and of their nearness and contact with this. 



The Authority of the Message 179 

And the spirit of Elijah rested upon Elisha. 
Thenceforth he could never doubt God and 
God's use of his servants. It was an abiding 
experience, and years after, when hemmed in at 
Dothan by the armies of Syria, he was not dis- 
turbed; and he asked that the eyes of his 
young servant, blinded and terrified by earthly 
power, might be opened and that he might 
see the armies of heaven marshalled for their 
defence. 

Some such great vision of God's truth, some 
such abiding experience of God's grace, every 
true prophet has had. 

Moses stood before the burning bush, an exile 
in the desert, doubting the meaning of his dream 
of a nation's deliverance, perhaps doubting the 
very power of Jehovah ; and that common bush 
became aflame with God, and in his soul the 
voice of the Eternal sounded, and he went forth 
to do God's will, with something of the patience 
of the Eternal, " Enduring, as seeing him who 
is invisible." Elijah at Carmel, and still more 
at Horeb, in the voice that was stillness itself, 
had the unmistakable evidence that God was 
in the world working out his righteous will. 
Said of Tarsus was stopped on his conscientious 
but mad career, and saw and heard the Christ, 
whom he thought dead and buried, and in that 
glorious vision had the spiritualizing of his 



180 The Authority of the Message 

learning and experience, and became Paul the 
Apostle. 

Augustine, after having whirled over all the 
dance floors of philosophy, and paid his respect 
to all possible systems, and grovelled through 
the experience of the senses, heard the voice in 
the cathedral cloister of Milan, "Take, read;" 
and the Scriptures revealed God and the soul 
to him, and he could say out of his deepest 
experience, " Thou hast made us for Thyself, and 
our heart is restless until it rests in Thee." 
Luther, from the study of the monk's cell, and 
the painful ascent of the steps of St. Peter, 
knew the truth "that the just shall live by 
faith." 

John Wesley had profound experience of 
want and sin in the mines and factories of 
Yorkshire, and of God's grace and spirit in the 
prayer room at Oxford. Phillips Brooks saw 
love for Christ shining in a mother's face and 
found that all knowledge and culture and privi- 
lege had their true use in glorifying the divine 
life among men. 

And it is possible for each soul, in its own 
degree and in its own way, to have some such 
living realization of God's truth. We have the 
message in the word of God ; but the intellectual 
knowledge of the Scriptures alone, the most 
minute and scholarly study of Bible and theology 



The Authority of the Message 181 

and providential history, will not give a man 
the prophet's spirit, and so the authority of the 
word. The word must be detached from the 
book and become a living element of experience. 
Ezekiel had to eat the roll before it was his 
word. Going through a seminary does not 
make a man a prophet. We do not need more 
ministers, so much as better ones. It is a singu- 
lar fact that the false prophets were thick when 
the schools of the prophets flourished the most. 
They learned the trick of speech and the rote 
of religion. It is very easy to get the prophet's 
mantle and to assume the prophet's tone. But 
the prophet's spirit is a deeper matter. Without 
living experience of truth God does not speak 
through us. 

It is beautifully said of Augustine: "He bore 
witness of what he himself had seen. The secret 
of his marvellous influence was that he proph- 
esied, not of what he had read or thought, but of 
what he had experienced; that he uttered not 
merely his ideas, but himself" 

And Charles Kingsley in "Hypatia" vividly 
describes the power of Augustine: "Whether 
or not Augustine knew truths for all men, he at 
least knew sins for all men, and for himself as 
well as his hearers. There was no denying that. 
He was a real man, right or wrong. What he 
rebuked in others, he had felt in himself, and 



182 The Authority of the Message 

fought it to the death-grip, as the flash and 
quiver of that worn face proclaimed." * 

Then, to have authority for our message, we 
must get in some way an experience of religion. 
The old phrase, so much abused, has in it the 
profoundest truth. 

Men are so easily moved by popular opinion, 
by currents of influence about them, by super- 
ficial and flippant criticism of religion, because 
they have no deep experience of God's grace. 
Those who know what a sure foundation God 
has laid do not make haste. The tree that 
sends its roots deep down into the earth lifts 
its trunk high against the sun and storm, and 
grows by the very contests of nature. 

The man that has even the shortest personal 
creed — the single truth of the blind man — 
"One thing I know," is built on the rock, and 
the winds and the floods cannot destroy. 

We are not to seek for any mysterious expe- 
rience, trust in any singular and striking ex- 
perience that may come to us ; but we shall have 
this experience of religion if we are faithful. 

It means the honest effort to be a student of 
the Scriptures, — to understand the message 
of the Gospel in its definiteness and sweep and 
passion. A lifelong discipline it means. The 
man who cannot say to grammar and philosophy 

1 p. 339. 



The Authority of the Message 183 

and history, as they have to do with the inter- 
pretation of the Word, " You are my tools and 
I will know how to use you, and I will make you 
bring forth things new and old from the divine 
treasury," is not fit to go into the ministry. 
In some way the Bible must be made a living 
book, and with such a large and growing com- 
prehension that it can be made a living book to 
others. 

All the real prophets of Christianity have 
been masters of the Bible. They have dared, 
if need be, to be ignorant of many books, that 
they might know the one. It has been the one 
book to them, and its thought has dominated 
them. 

If we are willing to gain the power of a sincere 
and thorough scholarship, we shall have com- 
monplaces of the Word lighted with new glory, 
and visions of the Christ that shall make the 
heart burn within us. And we are to dis- 
trust any indolent and easy way of spiritual 
knowledge. 

It means an honest effort to understand the 
life of men, a training in thinking and feeling 
that shall help to a penetrative understanding of 
other men's lives and hopes and temptations; 
some view of the long generations that have 
gone before us for poise and sanity and catholic- 
ity, and a humanity that shall count the humblest 



184 The Authority of the Message 

and feeblest about us of priceless worth, and 
put us in the place of "men my brothers, men 
the workers." 

It means at times a separation from men — 
the sacred hours of quiet in the soul, when God 
can speak and we can listen to His voice. No 
"Canon Wealthy" of Hajl Caine's creation, who 
lives ever in the eye of the world, who secretly 
prides himself upon being a man of the world, 
and adapting Christianity to the nineteenth 
century, who comes into his pulpit so smug and 
well-favored and self-satisfied with his fine 
elocution and his polished rhetoric, — no man of 
this stamp can ever do the prophet's work. He 
may for the time gather an influential constit- 
uency; he can gather few souls into the King- 
dom of a spiritual life. 

This is no plea for ascetic virtue. The day 
of the monk is gone. The day of the large vision 
and the serene life should come. But we can- 
not see far and clear if we are always in the 
crowd; neither shall we have the serene soul, 
strong and true amid petty and confused 
alarms, unless sometimes, like our Master, we 
seek the mountain and the desert. 

And if this finding of reality must come to 
some of us through a still deeper experience, 
through the fight with fierce passions or with 
the spectres of doubt, through the yielding of 



The Authority of the Message 185 

cherished ambitions, or the death of hopes dear 
as life itself, we must not mistrust the guidance 
of our Father and call ourselves the afflicted, 
but like brave and true men wait for God to 
speak. "He calls His servants from the high- 
lands of trial." It is the prophet's experience 
of the reality of God and of heaven and of 
spiritual truth. 

The question as to the authority of the mes- 
sage has been partly answered. The prophet's 
experience speaks more convincingly than tech- 
nical and philosophical discussion. 

Protestantism means trust in the living Spirit 
to interpret the facts of historic Christianity 
and the growing life of the race. It means a 
religion of the Spirit and not a religion of merely 
outward authority. No authority of Church or 
the Bible can take the place of the voice of a 
man's own soul, guided by the Spirit of truth. 

But Protestantism in the matter of religion 
as well as society may be in danger of undue 
individualism. The tendency may easily be 
to place emphasis upon experience to the ex- 
clusion of the Bible. Men speak of a continuous 
revelation, of the authority of the individual 
conscience, as though Christ were not the fullest 
word of God we knew, and the experience of 
man might yet develop a more authoritative 
religion than Christianity. So there are varying 



186 The Authority of the Message 

and conflicting voices in the pulpit. There is 
a vagueness in the message, and men cry as of 
old — what is the truth? And they question 
whether the pulpit knows any more of these 
mighty problems of religion than the uncertain 
multitude does. 

What is the relation between the Bible and 
experience, between the objective and inner 
revelation? Can our experience have any 
authority apart from Christ? The Scriptures 
are the treasury of religious experience. The 
truth was felt and lived and made a revelation 
by life before there was any record of it. The 
New Testament was experienced and spoken 
before it was written. The Gospel is the life, 
and the book is simply the record of it. In 
Christ was life and the life was the light of men. 
But this experience is written that we might 
have hope. 

Men get their clear, redeeming knowledge of 
God through Christ, and they know Christ 
through the Scriptures. 

The seat of religious authority is in the soul 
of man, but the source of authority is God. 
The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord. 
Conscience recognizes one as supreme; and 
Christ as the final word, the most perfect rev- 
elation of the Father, the "" personification of 
God in human history," is the norm of experi- 



The Authority of the Message 187 

ence. Man's experience of God cannot go be- 
yond His. That I may know Him, is the great 
endeavor of the spiritual man. So our ex- 
perience is inspired, tested, guided by the Scrip- 
tures as the word of Christ. The authority of 
the preacher's word comes from the experience 
in the soul of the truth of Christ. It is the union 
of the outer and inner experience: the great 
objective facts of Christ's Gospel as experienced 
and so interpreted by the soul of man. The 
man who rests solely upon the past becomes a 
traditionalist and dogmatist and fails to believe 
in the living Christ. The man who trusts 
solely to his own experience is a rationalist and 
may have no more authority than his own 
imperfect life. The life that draws its truth and 
inspiration from the Christ, that is ever trying 
to incarnate more of His truth, is the life to 
whom God is speaking and that shall be able 
to speak to men, not as the scribes, but with the 
power of a living and life-giving word. 



IX 

A LIVING MESSAGE 



OUTLINE 

The Age emphasizes the importance of a Living Message. 
The organizations of the Church tend to hide the prophetic 

office. 
Critical and aesthetic taste in worship may lessen the sense 

of message. 
The indifference of the multitude calls for a more vital 
word. 
"The Testimony of Jesus" is the Living Message. 
Christ is the essential message of the Bible. 
Christ interprets the nature and movement of human life. 
The Christian Prophets have ever given the Testimony of 
Jesus. 
The spiritual eras have been marked by the preaching of 
Christ. 
The Living Message for each age is to be found in the Christ. 
The Person of Christ makes the simplicity of the Gospel. 
The living message must be simple and positive. 
The positiveness of the modern pulpit affected by the en- 
larged religious problem and by Biblical criticism. 
The essential and unchangeable in the person of Christ. 
The Person of Christ makes the full, comprehensive message. 
The knowledge of Christ the condition for the Preacher's 
Living Message. 

References: 

Van Dyke. "The Gospel for an Age of Doubt." 

Lect. 2-5. 
Gordon. "The Christ of To-day." 
Simpson. " The Fact of Christ." 
Abbott. "The Christian Ministry." Lect. 9-10. 
Ross. "The Universality of Jesus." 



190 



IX 

A LIVING MESSAGE 

"The Church needs the prophet far more 
than the priest." To awaken men to a sense of 
God and to the higher relations of life, the 
preacher must have a message that is vital, 
essential, inspiring. What shall the message 
be? 

The age speaks the importance of the preach- 
er's message. 

The highly organized nature of religious life 
makes a living message imperative. 

The modern church, in its desire to minister 
to the whole life of man, has become a great 
business with its multiplying details of clubs 
and classes and societies. The prophetic office 
may be lost in the maze of activities. "The 
minister can be the busiest man in town, and 
yet leave his great task undone." A growing 
refinement finds expression in a critical and 
aesthetic taste in worship. Worship should 
be freed from careless and irreverent forms, 
made the sincere expression of the religious 

191 



192 A Living Message 

life of the Church, and the more adequate voice 
and symbol of the great facts of religion. 

But it must be remembered that perfection 
of liturgy has never been synonymous with 
spiritual life. The critical eras have never 
been creative ones. The emphasis upon form 
has invariably suppressed the Spirit. " It may 
be held for certain," says Canon Henson, of 
Westminster Abbey, "that an excessive care 
for religious ceremony is incompatible with a 
high standard of preaching." 

Organization and worship, perfect as they 
ought to be, are no substitutes for the prophet's 
voice. The machinery of the Church will move 
in vain without the Spirit within the wheels. 
The arts may fill the temple with beauty and 
majesty, but the worshippers are no better 
unless the Shekinah is there. 

And if we turn from the Church to the multi- 
tudes without, we shall feel still more deeply the 
need of a vital message. Is there a living, loving 
God, and has He a word for the strength and 
comfort of men? This is the question back of 
every other, and men have a right to look to the 
teacher of religion for the answer. 

We must not try to quiet our conscience by 
saying that the multitudes beyond the Church 
are irreligious. That is not the exact and 
whole truth of the matter. They are more 



A Living Message 193 

uncertain than irreligious. The former con- 
ceptions of God do not meet the demand of the 
modern mind. Men think of creation as con- 
tinuous and law as natural, and they apply the 
same tests to belief in God as to other knowledge ; 
and many of them say, "We cannot know," 
and they know that something is lost from life 
when they say it. Some still keep their places 
in the church, for the sake of their families and 
the tender memories of their childhood. But 
there can be little force in such religious con- 
formity when against the teachings of the 
Church their reason places a grave question. 
But far the greater number, uncertain as to 
God and the future, devote themselves with 
new zest to the life of this world. Never before 
has man had such mastery over the earth, and 
never before has its life been so interesting and 
absorbing. Every sphere of industrial toil, 
all that ministers to physical and mental de- 
light, the realms of investigation and specula- 
tion, the relations and work of society and the 
State, have the devotion of multitudes of men 
and women who do not seek guidance and 
inspiration from the Church. 

To their intellectual uncertainty must be 
added the moral questioning as to the power of 
the Church to control the life even of Christian 
lands. The multitudes without the Church are 



194 A Living Message 

not irreligious, though they may seem to live 
without God. Creeds, liturgies, sermons, mean 
little to them, yet they are not without moral 
earnestness, and many are eager to serve their 
fellow-men. If the questions of religion are not 
uppermost, it is not because they lack religious 
natures or that these questions will not again 
assert their supremacy. " Ours is not an age of 
doubt, it is one of hesitation and helplessness. 
It is a very serious age, with a grim determina- 
tion for truthfulness. It will not pretend. It 
is not atheistic in temper, it is at heart forlorn. 
Its restless energy, its feverish activity, its lust 
for business, are only in part due to love for 
these things. This world is to-day so much as 
it is to civilized man, because the other world 
has never seemed so remote." 

How shall the teachers of Christianity so live 
and speak that God shall be real, that the soul 
in men shall awake and assert its divineness, 
and men shall feel that to live the life of men 
they must have faith in God ? It is all a chal- 
lenge to the pulpit ; a call for a living message. 
What shall the message be? 

In the last book of the sacred Canon, through 
a series of titanic pictures, the contest of Chris- 
tianity with the forces of evil is portrayed. 
Then comes the vision of triumph. The voice 
1 Dr. McConnell, "Christ," p. 190. 



A Living Message 195 

of a great multitude is heard, as the voice of 
many waters and mighty thunders praising 
God. The centre of the picture is Jesus; the 
power and the honor are His ; in the tender and 
beautiful symbolism of John, it is "the mar- 
riage of the Lamb." All creation joins the 
Church universal in its rejoicing. And the 
men who shall bring in the promised day are 
the men in all ages that hold the testimony of 
Jesus. 

The scene closes with the impressive words: 
"For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of 
prophecy." The true prophets of the Church 
— the men who speak for God, and win the 
spiritual victories — are the men who give 
the testimony of Jesus. Christ is the living 
message. 

It is a truism to say that this library of re- 
ligion that we call the Bible has its significance 
and unity in the person of Christ. Its history 
is a record of the people's need and preparation 
for Him, its prophecy points with increasing 
clearness to His coming and character. Christ 
said of the Old Testament writings that "they 
testify of Me." And the reason and heart of 
the New Testament is the person of Christ. Its 
Gospels are His biography, the Acts are a record 
of His presence in the infant Church, the Epistles 
are the unfolding and application of His truths, 



196 A Living Message 

the Apocalypse the picture of the present and 
future contest of Christ in His Church with the 
forces of evil. He is its substance, its purpose, 
its inspiration. The supreme authority of the 
Bible is in its living word. 

Christ holds the key to the nature and move- 
ment of human life. Christianity begins as 
simply loyalty to the person of Christ and grows 
into an all-comprehending philosophy of life, 
with a single, ever moving, and unchanging cen- 
tre in the fact of Christ. The experience of 
Paul is in some sense a path and type of the ex- 
perience of the Church. He believed when he 
stood before the living Christ and so knew that 
His life and teachings were the word of God. 
At first He was simply the Messiah, the prom- 
ise made to the fathers; but to Paul's devout 
meditation and profound experience He became 
the very fulness of God. He was the friend and 
Saviour of sinners, and through this relation He 
grew into the interpreter and ruler of all life, 
of nature and of human souls, the " One worthy 
to open the book" of man's nature and destiny, 
the philosophy of history, "in whom were all 
things created, in the heavens and upon the 
earth," "in whom all things hold together," 
the one divine event to which the whole creation 
moves. 

"I remember," says Dr. Dale, of Birming- 



A Living Message 197 

ham, "that when I discovered and knew that 
the Lord Jesus Christ is alive, I could think of 
nothing else, and preach nothing else for weeks. 
It was a genuine Eastertime." 

The historic Jesus is not only fact to be ac- 
cepted and remembered, to be believed and 
taught with its inference of doctrine and duty, 
He is the living Brother, Redeemer, and Lord, 
the "light that light eth every man that cometh 
into the world," the perfect truth of which the 
best that men have found in every age and land 
are "broken lights," the realized dream of sages 
and seers, the inspirer of all true life, the direc- 
tor of the beneficent energies of mankind, the 
Lord of that "Eternal Kingdom to which the 
race was destined from the beginning, and in 
which alone the life of man, which is akin to 
the life of God, can reach the height of its power, 
its greatness, its perfection, and its joy." 

It follows that all teachers who have caught 
visions of the Kingdom have in some way 
spoken of Jesus. The testimony of Jesus has 
been the message of all prophetic voices. It 
certainly was so with the Apostles. Their 
preaching was all about Jesus, — the story of 
His life and death and resurrection. Naturally, 
these facts were adapted to and colored by 
the condition of the audience to which they 
spoke. To the Jew they spoke of Christ as the 



198 A Living Message 

fulfilment of their Scriptures, to the Roman 
as the doer of mighty works, to the Greek as the 
teacher of beautiful and divine truths; to the 
disciple of whatever race or speech, Christ as 
the author and companion of the new life. 

As the generations pass and the Church 
pushes into new regions and meets new con- 
ditions and presents the Gospel as a world- 
religion, the simple story of Christ grows and 
unfolds by its contest with new systems and its 
adaptation to larger experiences. It becomes 
the epic of heroic sacrifice, the drama of personal 
and social devotion, the voiced lyric of personal 
feeling, the history of organized service, the 
philosophy of thought and life. But the word, 
under whatever form, has power from Christ. 
It is the most life-giving as it has most of Him. 

The Spiritual Eras of the Church have been 
the days of preaching, when the old story was 
told with new power. The Christian prophets 
have ever given the testimony of Jesus. 

Clement spoke of God in His world and God 
in human life, because he had seen Him in the 
face of the Christ. 

Augustine's message, that God alone is good 
and the source of good, came from his profound 
knowledge of his own heart, and that all that 
was truly good in him came from his fellowship 
with the Divine man. 



A Living Message 199 

Luther stirred the low and mechanical life 
of medievalism with his doctrine of salvation 
by personal faith in the Christ. 

Wesley, in the midst of a philosophic, selfish, 
and hopeless Christianity, renewed the faith of 
men in the living power of Christ to save the 
lowest. 

Channing, to men tenacious of opinions and 
cold of heart, spoke of Jesus as the elder brother 
and the imitableness of His example. 

Phillips Brooks revealed the power and glory 
of sonship in Christ to an age overwhelmed by 
the sensible and the material and sceptical of 
its spiritual worth. 

Each great soul has found the message in 
Christ and has added something to the fulness 
and divineness of the message. There is a story 
of the Buddha that is far truer of Jesus. It is 
said that a group of devout artists were called 
to make a picture of "the Light of Asia." Each 
in turn wrought, and out of his own experience 
and conception gave some new touch to the 
picture. No single life alone could give more 
than a partial and imperfect view, but together 
the picture was complete. No man or church or 
age can give the whole message of Christ. Every 
man can give a true message, and the work 
shall go on until the world shall see Him as 
He is. 



200 A Living Message 

The fresh, living message is always to be had 
from the Christ. The experiences of the ages, 
the body of tradition, must be considered. An 
undue individualism is the sin of Protestantism. 
Disregard for what other men have found and 
taught, the great symbols of the Church, may 
show a sad lack of humility. But nevertheless 
there is no message of life-giving power apart 
from a new and personal experience of Christ. 
"Back to Christ" is the watchword of a vital 
and sincere faith. David Hume once said, on 
hearing John Brown, of Haddington: "That is 
the man for me; he means what he says; he 
speaks as if Jesus Christ were at his elbow." 
And it is said of Rutherford, that "when he 
appeared in the pulpit on Sundays, the people 
were overawed with the sense of Christ being 
in the preacher. It was Christ's face they saw 
beaming on them in the face of their pastor, 
and his tones thrilled with the power of the 
voice which once spake on earth as never man 
spake." 1 

And this is the simplicity of the Gospel, some 
word of Christ that has sounded through the 
depths of the preacher's own soul, some relation 
with Him that has mastered his conscience and 
desire and will, so that he can say to men, 
"Come and see that the Lord is good," and men 
1 Horton, " Verbum Dei," p. 174. 



A Living Message 201 

shall believe that he knows something of the 
message he speaks. 

The simplicity of the prophet's message is 
in perfect keeping with its comprehensiveness, 
though to a superficial mind they may seem con- 
tradictory. Both are essential truths for the 
preacher. The word that is to win attention 
and give life must be a simple and positive word 
of Christ. Confused, obscured, variant voices 
have come from the pulpit of our age. 

This is God's world, men say, and all that 
ministers to the good of man is a part of His 
Kingdom and may have place in the instruction 
of His servants. The altar sanctifieth the gift. 
And the horizons have widened too fast for the 
eye, and the prophet has not been able to grasp 
the meaning of the whole from the standpoint 
of Christ and His cross. 

And then criticism has been doing its necessary 
work. The word of Christ has come to us in a 
body of writings, and these cannot escape the 
tests of other literature. The truth has been 
bequeathed to us through systems of human 
thought, and the mind of Christ must be dis- 
tinguished from human forms. All honor to the 
reverent and fearless scholars of the Church. 
The quiet work of the study may be as important 
for the Kingdom of God as the fervent word of 
the Evangelist. 



202 A Living Message 

But will men distinguish between the things 
that are shaken and the unchangeable word? 
Through the dust of criticism will men see that 
indestructible and divine message which is the 
heart and burden of the Evangel ? The people 
— they must have a clear word to comfort their 
hearts and show them the way everlasting. We 
may know but a few things, but they must be 
the essential and the eternal. Our critical 
studies will be in vain unless they make the way 
plainer. We have not the spirit of truth unless 
Christ is glorified. We cannot be uncertain 
about Him and speak a doubtful word and be 
His messenger and His witness. There can be 
no doubt that the pulpit of the age has lost some- 
thing of its certitude and authority. And in 
reverence and humility and sincerity of study 
and of life it must regain it, if we are to have a 
clear word of prophecy. We must stop quibbling 
about the form and fringe of truth, and grasp 
that which is the life. This must be taught with 
the utmost conviction and directness and sin- 
cerity. "The critic is an analyst with a pair of 
scales; the evangelist is a missionary with a 
cross." " Speak a gude word for Jesus Christ," 
said the dying mother to her boy, in the beautiful 
story by Dr. Watson. "The fire of the hearth 
licked up the masterpiece with its statement of 
theological thought and its quotation from the 



A Living Message 203 

scholars, and in the love born of sacrifice the 
young minister spoke to his people. The 
subject was Jesus Christ, and before he had 
spoken five minutes I was convinced, who am 
outside dogmas and churches, that Christ was 
present. The preacher faded from before one's 
eyes, and there was the figure of the Nazarene, 
best lover of every human soul, with a face of 
tender patience such as Sarto gave the Master 
in the Church of the Annunziata, and stretch- 
ing out his hands to old folk and little children as 
He did, before His death, in Galilee. His voice 
might be heard any moment, as I have imagined 
it in my lonely hours by the winter fire or on the 
solitary hills — soft, low and sweet, penetrating 
like music to the secret of the heart, ' Come unto 
Me and I will give you rest.' " 

It should be said that the plea for a simple 
positive Gospel is sometimes made for reasons 
that can hardly be harmonized with the mind of 
Christ. A full, comprehensive message is no 
less important than a simple one, and they need 
never be contradictory. "Give us the simple 
Gospel,' ' "Preach Christ," are often used as 
cant phrases, by the pew to keep the pulpit from 
interfering with immoral gains and immoral 
pleasures, by the pulpit to emphasize some 
partial and sectarian test of orthodoxy. John 
Wesley protested against what were "vulgarly 



204 A Living Message 

called Gospel sermons." With the satire of 
a Sydney Smith he pictures "the pert, self- 
sufficient" men who talk loudly of "Christ and 
His blood or justification by faith" and the 
"hearers cry out, What a fine Gospel sermon." 
"Preaching Christ" has a much larger meaning 
than some who glibly talk of it ever think. The 
Gospel is indeed "the plain man's pathway to 
heaven." Christ is so simple that a child may 
know and love, and He is "the eternal contem- 
porary of the saints and sages of every age." 
He must be held up as the friend of sinners and 
as the master of human life. His grace can save 
to the uttermost, and His principles are absolute 
and universal in the affairs of the individual 
and in the manifold and complex relations of 
society. 

It is a wonderful thing to preach Christ. 
Surely the pulpit has not reached the full measure 
of the thought. Even the aged Apostle con- 
fessed, "We know in part and we prophesy in 
part." The Scriptures speak of Him. History 
is His pathway. Literature is full of His in- 
spiration. All thought, endeavor, progress, 
speaks of Him who gives it life, color, purpose. 
Nature is His. Her manifold messages are His 
voices, and her forces are His servants. 

The man who has this conception cannot but 
preach a living message. To preach the Gospel 



A Living Message 205 

is to preach Christ in all His relations to the 
Bible, to the world, and to humanity. Such a 
spirit sees Him everywhere, and labors and waits 
for the perfect revelation. 

Christ is the Alpha and Omega of theological 
culture as He is of Christian experience. "That 
I may know Him" should be the great endeavor 
of every student for the ministry as it was the 
single purpose and passion of the Apostle Paul. 
He will glorify all learning and all learning should 
bring its tribute to Him. "It will be a hard 
day," says Dr. Alexander Whyte of Edinburgh, 
"when I cannot make a straight path from any 
field of study to the Cross of Christ." 

"To know Christ" involves moral conformity 
as well as intellectual apprehension; there is 
no other spiritual knowledge save that which 
comes from the union of head and heart and 
will, the knowledge of experience. The moral 
test of the prophet is inseparable from the 
doctrinal. "Not every one that saith Lord, 
Lord," are the warning words of Christ. "Not 
every one that speaketh in the Spirit is a 
prophet," is the rule laid down in the "Teach- 
ing of the Twelve Apostles," "but only if he 
have the behavior of the Lord." The life of the 
prophet speaks as loudly as his word. 

Therefore, as sincere learners (for that is the 
very picture of a prophet) we are to practise 



206 A Living Message 

the presence of Christ, not suffering ourselves 
to accept any truth without honest application 
to self, striving to become all that the truth is 
fitted to make us. Religious truth must be 
present in life before it can be definitely present 
in thought and find warm and persuasive utter- 
ance in speech. "Realize in experience," says 
Dr. Dale, " without haste and impatience, the 
contents of the Christian revelation, and then you 
will be able both to think and to state them." 
Growth in the grace and knowledge of Christ 
will give the prophet's message and help to make 
it a word of living and life-giving power. 



X 

THE AIM OF THE MESSAGE 



OUTLINE 

The Gospel of a Person especially adapted to our age. 
Christ gives the Abundant Life : this the Aim of the Message. 

Paul's doctrine of reconciliation expressed in terms of life. 

John interprets life in terms of love. 
Christ's truth of Life the completion of prophetic teaching. 

The Old Testament teaches the meaning of a righteous life. 

Christ adds the graces of the Spirit to the moral qualities 
of life. 

The fullest life the aim of the Gospel message. 
The Message of Life to be full and harmonious, free from par- 
tial and undue emphasis. 

Not as chiefly escape from penalty. 

Not to be identified with subjective states. 

Not adequately interpreted in terms of future bliss. 
Christ's Truth of Life to be measured by spiritual terms. 

"Eternal life." "Christianity is God's way of making a 
man." 

References: 

Drummond. "The Ideal Life." 

Peabody. "Christ and the Christian character." 

Johnson. "The Ideal Ministry." Lect. 2. 



THE AIM OF THE MESSAGE 

The last lecture dwelt upon the special mes- 
sage of the preacher. It is what Dr. Henry 
van Dyke well calls the Gospel of a Person. 
Christianity is the religion of a Person. Christ 
has been the theme of the best preaching of 
every age. He is especially adapted to the 
need of our own age. The person of Christ 
awakens the true selfhood in men. In the 
time when the sense of personal responsibility 
is dimmed by scientific and philosophic thought, 
Christ awakens the fact and sacredness of per- 
sonality and makes conscience sensitive and 
authoritative. When speculative doubt blocks 
the way of faith for many thoughtful lives, 
Christ stands as the best life, the largest truth, 
the acknowledged master, and obedience to 
Him as the only path of spiritual knowledge. 
To preach Christ is the comprehensive, inspiring 
message of the pulpit. Not a narrow, technical, 
sectarian Christ, but the breadth of His life; 
Christ- in relation to the Scriptures, to nature, 
and to human interests ; in that fulness of rela- 

p 209 



210 The Aim of the Message 

tion which He has called the " Kingdom of God." 
The essence of the message then is the Person of 
Christ. But this does not answer the whole 
question as to the message. There are many 
truths connected with the Person of Christ, and 
these truths are held in different proportion by 
different men. What are the essential truths, 
the sum and substance of the message, that 
every man ought to preach to gain the highest 
life of men ? 

These practical questions of what to preach 
are involved in a larger question and are con- 
ditioned by it. What is the aim of the Gospel 
message? What did Christ come to do? The 
various answers of the Gospels are adaptations 
to the various natures and experiences of men. 
But the word that seems to take in all of man 
and his relations is found in the tenth chapter 
of John. "I am come that ye might have life 
and have it abundantly." Life is the need and 
mystery of man. 

" 'Tis life whereof our nerves are scant, 
More life and fuller that we want." 

What is life? Every thoughtful man feels the 
impossibility of reducing it to a definition or a 
formula. And when it seems to baffle us and 
we cry out over its imperfection, — and with 
only strength enough to cry, "What is life?" — 



The Aim of the Message 211 

we feel that Christ knows life, its height and its 
depth, its feeblest beginning and its utmost 
reach, that He is life and to know Him is to 
have life. 

The life of any organism depends upon har- 
mony with its environment. And this bio- 
logical law has its analogy in the life of man. 
God is the true environment of the soul : nature, 
the sensible expression of God and in which He 
lives and rules, the world of beings that carry 
out His purpose, the forces within and without 
that express His will. The life of man depends 
upon obedience to the laws of life, physical, 
mental, and spiritual, God's will in nature and 
redemption. In harmony with God is life; 
out of harmony with God is death. If the fact 
of God is granted, this is self-evident. 

Moreover, it needs no proof that man is not 
in perfect harmony with God. He goes aside 
from the right. He comes short of the best. 
Sins of omission and commission every honest 
man must confess, as in Bishop Usher's prayer. 
This is sin — to fail to do, or so imperfectly to 
do, the will of God. So Paul's definition of 
Christ's aim is the same truth put into new form. 
He speaks from the standpoint of man's need. 
The essence of his Gospel is expressed in the 
great phrase, "God was in Christ reconciling the 
world unto Himself." 



i 



212 The Aim of the Message 

Reconciliation in the terms of life is character. 
Christ is the author and finisher of faith, the 
goal of all endeavor. To have life is likeness 
to Christ. To Paul, moral progress is always 
Christward. "Till we all attain unto a full- 
grown man, unto the measure of the stature of 
the fulness of Christ." 

Life in the fullest sense of the spiritual nature 
of man is the aim of the Gospel preacher. It is 
spiritual life, in contrast to the sensible, sensu- 
ous, temporary, superficial that men seek, and 
thereby cheat themselves into thinking that 
they have life. 

The Apostle John defines life as the love of 
the Father. "Love not the world/' he says, 
"neither the things that are in the world. If 
any man love the world, the love of the Father 
is not in him." * 

The world that is condemned because opposed 
to true life, is not the world of nature, which God 
has pronounced very good, and which may 
minister to the spirit of man. In the lowly 
daisy there abides "some concord with human- 
ity." And the man who truly loves nature and 
is in fellowship with her life finds the truths of 
singleness and simplicity and obedience and the 
truest ministry to the Spirit. 

It is not the world of human life that is con- 
1 1 John ii. 15-17. 



The Aim of the Message 213 

demned, for Christianity has given worth to the 
humblest man, and interest in men is mark of 
the higher life. Nor is it the world of human 
activities that is opposed to life, the sum of 
earthly plans and achievements, for these are but 
the expression of the true energy of man, and 
may minister to the perfection of the Kingdom. 

"Worldliness," as Robertson says, "is deter- 
mined by the spirit of the life, not the objects 
with which the life is conversant. It is not the 
flesh, nor the eye, nor life, which are forbidden, 
but it is the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the 
eye, and the pride of life. It is not this earth, 
nor the men who inhabit it, nor the sphere of 
our legitimate activity, that we may not love; 
but the way in which the love is given which 
constitutes worldliness." To know that we 
are God's children, and live in God's world, to 
recognize Him and to delight in His law, this is 
life. "He that doeth the will of God abideth 
forever." 

Christ's teaching of life is the fulfilment and 
completion of a long line of teaching and training. 

It is significant that the Old Testament has 
only glimpses of a future life, the light seeming 
to shine on only here and there a mountain peak. 
Whether the truth of immortality was grasped 
by only a few advanced souls, or whether it 
was the general background of thought, vague 



214 The Aim of the Message 

and clouded with earthly conceptions as in so 
many other races, it would be hard to say. It 
is certain, however, that the purpose of the Old 
Testament teachings and rites is something dif- 
ferent and preliminary to the doctrine of the 
future. Its great word is righteousness — to 
secure a right life for men on the earth. The 
sense of the relation of human life to the supreme 
life, and the criticalness of this relation, is con- 
stantly taught by precept and example. The 
thought of God must be lifted up above the gross 
and sensual conceptions of idolatry to one who 
is supreme in power and authority because 
supreme in moral qualities. The fickle and self- 
ish wills of earthly deities, projection of man's 
heart, must yield to one mill as certain as the 
course of the stars and the procession of the 
seasons, and connected vitally and minutely 
with all that concerns human life. The I am, 
the One, the Supreme, the Holy One, the 
righteous God who has made the world and man, 
who has made laws to govern life and the social 
forms of the family and the State, this is the 
revelation of the Hebrew race, the teaching of 
the Old Testament. Its purpose is the devel- 
opment of the conscience of the race, the sense 
of right and wrong, through relation to the 
mighty, wise, and righteous God. 
The obligations of life flow from the source 



The Aim of the Message 215 

of life. Men must strive to be like their con- 
ceptions of God. They must be under the 
sanction of His moral majesty. It is a moral 
world in which men live, and they must strive 
for a life in harmony with the moral rule, the 
just and holy God. There are beautiful glimpses 
of a closer and tenderer relation, the shepherd 
love and care of the Psalms, the wedded love 
that still lives though rejected and outraged 
as in Hosea. But the central thought of the 
Old Testament revelation is the unity and holi- 
ness of God ; the great aim is to bring man to a 
righteous life, to lay the moral basis for the 
higher life of the race, to give man a sensitive 
and true conscience, to make the spirit of man 
the candle of the Lord, so that life may at last 
be lighted with a divine light. It educates the 
soul to a conception of a higher life and to a 
hunger for it. 

Christ carries on the prophetic thought. He 
completes the conception of life, and gives the 
truths and the motives that shall help men to 
realize it. The holy ruler is now the " right- 
eous Father"; the subject is now the son. 
The sanctions of law become the obligations of 
love. On the moral basis of life rise the quali- 
ties of the Spirit. Righteousness is not only 
obedience to law written in conscience and in 
the very nature of things, but the fulfilment of 



216 The Aim of the Message 

the higher law of love. In Christ mercy and 
truth have met together, righteousness and 
peace have kissed each other. "All's law, yet 
all's love." The Christian conception of life 
and type of life is distinctly higher than that of 
the Old Testament, and is the peculiar product 
of the life and spirit of Christ. On the great 
elemental, universal qualities, that have their 
embodiment in the moral law, — reverence, jus- 
tice, obedience, fortitude, honor, — rise the 
finer qualities of the Spirit: the sense of im- 
perfection, the sorrow for moral failure, the pas- 
sion for righteousness, the loving recognition 
of the moral discipline of life, the singleness of 
devotion to that which is excellent, the enthu- 
siasm that makes life a service for the spread of 
truth, the trust that accepts any cost for the 
good of man. The portrait of the disciple, of 
citizenship in the Kingdom of God, drawn for 
us in the short and heavenly lines of the Beati- 
tudes, is life as Christ lives it and reveals it, 
and as He would help us to realize it. And 
this is to be the aim of every message of the 
Christian pulpit, life as Christ conceives it, and 
as Christ alone can give it. 

We are to avoid giving a partial or one-sided 
emphasis to the message. Christ's truth of life 
is often preached as though it were an escape 
from penalty. The life of man as we know it is 



The Aim of the Message 217 

a violation of the moral law and a failure even to 
perceive the higher realm of the Spirit. And 
goodness means moral order ; and sin — the 
least sin — is so far moral disorder and thereby 
tends to separate the soul from fellowship with 
God. It is a world of law, and sin brings its self- 
inflicted penalty. How to escape the shame 
of moral failure, that the soul has been untrue 
to its best self; how to escape the guilt of sin, 
that the soul has been untrue to its relation to 
God, — is the question that weighs upon the mind. 
When the soul gazes upon the pitiful contrast 
between the life of a son and its own blind, 
selfish life, the tragic word of the Psalm is none 
too strong. "The hand of God was heavy upon 
me; and my moisture was turned into the 
drought of summer." Christ's word of for- 
giveness seems to come as the best and greatest 
word to man. To have Christ say, "Thy sins 
be forgiven thee," "Neither do I condemn thee; 
go and sin no more," seems the good news of 
salvation. It is the turning point of life, the 
assurance that God trusts the soul, that fellow- 
ship is renewed, and the Father's house is once 
more open to man. And the life that Christ 
gives may ' easily be identified with its early 
stages, and the emphasis be placed upon the 
removal of penalty to the neglect of larger 
truth. "There is now no condemnation" may 
become the Gospel message. 



218 The Aim of the Message 

Again, Christ's gift of life may largely be 
thought of as subjective states, the peace of mind 
from the assurance of sin forgiven, the joy of 
fellowship with God, the hope that this gift of 
life may not fail. And the emphasis may so be 
placed upon feeling, that the soul may expect 
unnatural marks of the work of Christ, and fail- 
ing to receive may be left in doubt, or driven 
to abnormal and sensational ways of sustaining 
the spiritual life. Feeling is but the shadow 
of the man, as Henry Drummond so strikingly 
taught. If we do the will, the appropriate 
feelings may be trusted to follow the acts of 
obedience. And once more — future bliss, the 
joys of heaven, are often pictured as the 
goal of life. In more than one age this 
world has seemed very evil, and Christ's gift 
of life hung above it as a beautiful hope of 
the future. And to multitudes, " weary of 
earth and laden with sin," the promise of a 
future life, free from the perverting and crip- 
pling influences of evil, has seemed the great 
boon of the Gospel. 

Christ's truth of life has been interpreted in 
terms of human desire, and not in the abundant 
life Christ is able to bestow upon men. Life as 
salvation has been conceived of under the terms 
of a transaction rather than the training of a 
wise and loving Father. 



The Aim of the Message 219 

Christ teaches salvation as a life that has 
fellowship with God. It escapes from penalty 
because it turns to the Father and gains the 
victory of the filial spirit. It has the joy of 
salvation because it is sustained by the free 
spirit of a Son. Heaven is a glad expectation 
because it has been partaking of the heavenly 
life. The future of the sons of God is but the 
reasonable hope from their present life. The 
life that Christ gives has the deathless qualities 
of faith, hope, and love ; it does the will of God 
and so partakes of His ageless life. It is meas- 
ured by terms of spiritual being and not by time. 
It is seonian, the new age life; eternal life be- 
cause it has the life that God gives and cannot 
be measured or limited by the flight of years. 
The present has relation to the future as the 
blossom to the fruit. The act of forgiveness is 
a single step in the long process of life. Eternal 
life in its beginning and growth is the constant 
act of God's grace. The moral realm is blended, 
not lost, in the realm of love. The righteous 
and loving character of God is manifest in the 
life of sons. The aim of the Gospel is to quicken 
in men the sense of sonship and help them to 
live lives worthy of it. It is to awaken the 
sense of spiritual manhood and furnish the 
means and motives for its fullest realization. 
Christianity is God's way of making a man. 



XI 
THE CONTENTS OF THE MESSAGE 



OUTLINE 

The Person and Presence of God the first truth of the message. 

God not to be proved, but manifested. 

God best made known in Jesus Christ. 
The truth of Man's Nature to be taught, to awaken spiritual 
desire. 

Jesus the best revelation of man,of his need and possibility. 

The moral sense awakes in the presence of Jesus. 
The truth of the Atonement in preaching. 

Its prominence in Apostolic preaching. 

The difficulties of preaching the doctrine to the modern 
mind. 

It must be preached as a vital reality. 

The justice and love of God should both be expressed. 

It should give the assurance of sin forgiven. 

It should express a law of life. 
Faith in its various aspects in the Gospel Message. 

Faith must be preached as belief, aspiration, obedience, 
summed up in committal. 
The Holy Spirit an essential truth of the new life. 

Essentially a truth of Christian experience. 
The Resurrection in the pulpit message. 
The Spirit of the pulpit message. 

The preaching should be positive and constructive. 

And in faith that men will respond to the message. 

References : 

Brooks. "Lectures on Preaching." Lect. 6-8. 

Forsythe. " Positive Preaching and the Modern 
Mind." 

Tucker. "The Making and Unmaking of the 
Preacher." Lect. 5. 

Campbell-Morgan. "The Holy Spirit." 

Campbell. "The Heart of the Gospel." 

Stalker. "The Preacher and his Models." 
Lect. 9. 

Watson. "The Cure of Souls." Lect, 4-5. 

Jackson. "The Message of the Modern Min- 
ister." 



XI 

THE CONTENTS OF THE MESSAGE 

Eternal life is the aim of the Gospel message. 
How shall the aim of the preacher's message 
be gained? How shall the person of Christ be 
presented, the truths connected with Him, so 
that men shall partake of His life ? 

The person and presence of God must be the 
first truth the preacher presents. Life may be 
defined as fellowship with God; and the sense 
of God and the need of God must be awakened 
in the soul. We are not to try to prove God 
by argument. The most conclusive arguments 
on theism can only strengthen faith, not create 
it. We are simply to try to manifest God — 
or open the eye that God may be seen. A man 
may deny that there is music in a sonata of Bee- 
thoven or a nocturne of Chopin. But if you can 
play the masterpiece, really interpret the soul 
of the artist, the man will say quickly enough 
there is music in it. Every soul has the latent 
sense of God, that can be brought out if God is 
truly interpreted. 



224 The Contents of the Message 

Men are made conscious of God, the latent 
faith is made living, as they understand Jesus. 
To present Christ in His purity that was a pas- 
sion for goodness; His love, never limited by 
taste and appreciation and reward, but going 
out to the unlovely and unthankful; His for- 
giveness, with no bitterness and resentment, but 
full of pity for the blindness and hardness of 
men; His humility, that had no self-conscious 
virtue, but freely took the office of a servant, 
is to make men know that they are in the pres- 
ence of the Divine life. The character of Jesus 
throws light upon the person of God. He is 
always conscious of God. His life is so single 
and consistent that every word that He speaks, 
every action the most spontaneous and un- 
premeditated, makes known this God-conscious- 
ness, reveals God to us. He begins His young 
life with a sense of mission from God and His 
last word is a sense of completeness. To Jesus 
the world is full of God. The processes of 
nature are proofs of the Father's love and care. 
And men, evil as they are, are the children of 
God, and little children are of the Kingdom of 
God. And Jesus revives and strengthens in 
our hearts the faith in God. He does not argue 
about God and try to convince the reason. He 
takes the fact of God for granted, and also the 
fact that we, if we are to live the lives of men, 



The Contents of the Message 225 

must have faith in God. He simply speaks out 
of his own experience of God. He simply reveals 
the traits that are most like God. And in the 
presence of Jesus it is easy for men to believe 
in God. Out of the mystery of being, from all 
the perplexing problems of nature, and more 
than all from the dark questions of human ex- 
perience, stands forth this simple, radiant, 
heavenly life of Jesus. He rivets the appre- 
hension of God upon the heart and conscience. 

We are to preach Christ's truth about the 
Fatherhood of God. We shall be able to reveal 
God if we truly present the Christ. "And this 
is life eternal that they might know Thee the 
only true God, and Him whom Thou didst send, 
even Jesus Christ." 1 

The truth of man must be taught, man a son, 
though a prodigal son. We must do just what 
Jesus did, awaken the sense of spiritual worth, 
create a hunger and thirst in the soul. "If 
thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that 
saith unto thee, Give Me to drink, thou wouldst 
have asked of Him and He would have given 
thee living water." Here again the best reve- 
lation of man's nature is in the person of Jesus. 
Out of His life comes the interpretation of life. 
The meaning of our lives is made known by 
countless common things. The daily things 
1 John xvii. 3. 
Q 



226 The Contents of the Message 

that make up a man's life begin to take their 
true shape, a wayside word, a cup of water, a 
friendly meal. Duty gets its real significance in 
His "My meat is to do the will of Him that 
sent Me." Friendship finds its motive and its 
bond in the "love unto the end." Pain and 
sorrow become the ministers of beauty and 
strength by the fellowship of His suffering. 
Service gets its vision and its motive when He, 
"knowing He was come from God and went to 
God," takes a towel and girds himself and does 
the work of a servant. We get the sense of 
proportion as we stand before the life of Christ. 
We get true self -estimates and "nobler loves 
and nobler cares." The very atmosphere grows 
luminous. We are able to see life clear and see 
life whole. 

The moral sense awakes. By self-compari- 
son men never truly feel their need. They 
may live in such false estimates as never to 
catch a true view of themselves. But before 
Christ they feel their sin. They know what 
moral dwarfs they are. "Depart from me, 
Lord, for I am a sinful man," is the instinctive 
cry of every honest heart. And every added 
conception of Christ will only help to sharpen a 
man's self-estimates. The impulsive man who 
gives the instinctive cry of need also makes the 
spontaneous confession of faith, "To whom 



The Contents of the Message 227 

shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal 
life." Repelled by our sin, we are drawn by 
His gracious and beneficent life. A man not 
only sees himself in Christ, but the man he ought 
to be and can be. It is the vision of possible 
sonship. If we would convince men of sin and 
give them a longing for a better life, then we 
must make Christ live before them in His simple, 
gracious, heavenly life. 

What place shall the Atonement have in our 
preaching? It is found in the Scriptures, the 
red line runs through them; it is found in life, 
there is a vicarious element in all true progress ; 
and it must be found in our sermons if we preach 
the Gospel in its simplicity and fulness. Christ 
spoke of His death as the great attractive power. 
It was certainly the burden of the Apostolic 
preaching. Paul gloried in it. John and Peter 
unmistakably taught it. It has been found 
in all the great preaching of the Church. Take 
the Cross out, and you have no Gospel. Without 
the Cross Christianity is only the refinement 
of human reason about spiritual things, an ethi- 
cal education, and not the redemptive power of 
God. It is not necessary that the preacher 
present a particular philosophy of it, though 
every man will try to think it through. There 
seems to be no consistent theory in the New 
Testament writers; they present different sides 



228 The Contents of the Message 

of the truth to different minds, to men who 
have had different training. And it is possible 
that states of training and mind corresponding 
to the historic stages of Hebraism and Hellen- 
ism, of the Monarchic view and the Democratic, 
may always be in our congregations. It is very 
certain that these different states are now among 
our people. And the seemingly opposing views 
and trainings make the most difficult problem of 
preaching. Dr. Berry of Wolverhampton, who 
was called by Plymouth Church to succeed 
Henry Ward Beecher, in his first years preached 
the sacrifice of Christ as expressing the suffer- 
ing love of the Father for the wayward child. 
But he found, as he thought, that this more 
refined and subtle philosophy did not take hold 
upon the conscience of helpless and hopeless 
men, and so he was led to preach a more simple 
and objective theory, that in some way Christ 
stands in the place of sinful men, and that the 
Cross assures Divine forgiveness and help to the 
man who will look to it. He found that this 
actually gave peace to guilty consciences, and 
new energy to hopeless hearts. Mr. R. J. 
Campbell of the City Temple, London, who in 
a city of six million people can draw to his 
ministry certain select minds, no doubt helps 
many to keep their religious life, who under 
old forms of truth would be agnostic. But his 



The Contents of the Message 229 

theistic monism is simply the vaguest unreality 
to nine-tenths of the English mind marked for 
its practical and realistic sense. 

It is possible to hold and express a theory of 
the Atonement that shall harmonize with the 
philosophy of evolution. But is it best con- 
stantly to preach the truth in this form ? How 
many of the people know or care about the 
philosophy ? It may be the truest form to-day. 
But who dare say that it is the aXr/deta, the 
unveiled reality, and that even the immediate 
future may not change the form ? The question 
is, will the truth put in biological forms convince 
the sinner of his sin, and lead him to repentance 
and faith? Christianity makes God the great 
missionary force to reach the downmost man, 
and our preaching must stand the test of its 
power to reach men in their sins. Four elements 
should be in our preaching of the Atonement, 
whatever be our theory of it. 

We should present it as a vital reality of the 
Gospel, inseparable from any truthful inter- 
pretation of the Scriptures, having manifold 
expression and correspondence in human his- 
tory, and as a necessary means of salvation. 

In our preaching of the Atonement we should 
try to reveal both the justice and the love of God. 
The Kingship of God is not lost in the more vital 
and noble conception of the Fatherhood. Love 



230 The Contents of the Message 

is the greatest thing in the world. God is love. 
But we can never take law out of love. We 
cannot do this of the best human love, without 
leaving it earthly, sensual, devilish. 

" You know how love is incompatible 
With falsehood, — purines, assimilates, 
All other passions to itself." 

And Christianity has interpreted the divine 
meaning of love and given it a heart of 
strength; it has even given it a new word, 
free from all taint of corruption. Love is not 
infinite good-nature, but goodness, and good- 
ness in its very essence is moral order. Love 
is not a kindly sentiment; it is a principle of 
conduct, a conception of duty, a purpose of 
service. Love can never be an " unerring light," 
unless it is also the voice of duty, and wears 
"the Godhead's most benignant grace." The 
highest Fatherhood is the one that has the high- 
est conception of the welfare of life, the moral 
basis of character, and the eternal principles on 
which all welfare rests. The sacrifice of Christ 
tells us that law and love are inseparable, and 
that the love of God must meet in some way 
the sense of right in God's heart and in man's. 

Then we should present the Atonement in a 
way to give men the assurance that sin is forgiven, 
and lead them to act upon it. Forgiveness 



The Contents of the Message 231 

needs to be taught, not as the sudden removal of 
the love of sin, the miraculous killing of the old 
habit of evil, nor as the removal of all the conse- 
quences, physical and moral, of our past sinful 
life, — but rather as the restoring of fellowship 
between the child and the Father. Sin estranges, 
it builds barriers, between the soul and God; 
and forgiveness says to men that there is noth- 
ing save your own unwillingness between your 
soul and God. It is the restoration of fellow- 
ship. 

The Atonement should be presented in a way 
not only to give the assurance of forgiveness, but 
to express a law of life. The Atonement, the 
suffering for sin, is the expression of true Father- 
hood, and such vicarious suffering is the law of 
life, the principle of spiritual progress. The 
sacrifice of Christ can be nothing for the soul, 
until it is accepted as the law of life within the 
soul. In other words, the Atonement must not 
be presented in a mechanical way, but as God's 
way of spiritual training. 

Faith must be taught as man's part in appro- 
priating the truth and life of Christ. It has 
various aspects in the teaching of Christ. It is 
sometimes synonymous with belief, again as 
equivalent to trust; now as a single act of the 
will, again as the attitude of the inner life, or 
even as the very capacity of the soul towards God. 



232 The Contents of the Message 

So faith must be presented in every way to 
awaken the soul in man, to make him conscious 
of his capacity and responsibility. Faith must 
be preached as belief, the intellectual acceptance 
of Christ, the acceptance of evidence, not as 
demonstration (spiritual truth cannot be demon- 
strated), but as moral probability; the accept- 
ance of that which promises the most light and 
life. 

Faith must be preached as aspiration, desire, 
setting the affections upon the ideal that Jesus 
stands for, thinking upon Him, setting Him 
before our face, longing after His perfections, 
striving to love what He loves and hate what 
He hates. 

Faith must be preached as the act of the will, 
obedience to the word of Christ, taking up the 
duties that belong to the Christian life, entering 
into the activities that belong to a servant of 
Christ. Faith may be best summed up as the 
committal of the life to the ideal of character 
and service taught by Christ. 

Especially must the emphasis of faith be 
placed upon obedience, the acting out of each 
apprehension of truth. Here is the critical 
point of our teaching, to reach conscience and 
persuade the will to action. "He will never be 
a preacher," says Dr. Stalker, "who does not 
know how to get at the conscience. We are 



The Contents of the Message 233 

preaching to the fancy, to the imagination, to 
intellect, to feeling, to will, and no doubt all 
these must be preached to ; but it is in the con- 
science that the battle is to be won or lost." 
Men know more than they will do. In every 
way men must be led to venture upon the life 
of faith. " Obedience is the organ of spiritual 
knowledge." Life is a growth; and when it 
ceases to grow, decay begins. Gain is by use. 
Extirpation is the penalty of disuse. 

The Holy Spirit is an essential truth of the 
Gospel and a means of the new life. It seems 
an unknown truth to most young men and is 
often left out of their thoughts and preaching. 
But the older men grow and the deeper their 
experiences of religion, the more they recognize 
the fact that the Christian life is a life of the 
Spirit; it is vain to look for the perfection of 
fruit without God's Spirit. And the word we 
speak and the service we render get their power 
from His influence. 

It is essentially a truth of Christian experience. 
And the practical preaching of the truth centres 
around the exhortations, " Grieve not the 
Spirit" and "Quench not the Spirit." Remove 
whatever may hinder the cooperation of God's 
Spirit with yours, for thus only can come fulness 
and fruitfulness of life. Believe in the presence 
of God's Spirit, follow the inner impulse as the 



234 The Contents of the Message 

divine voice. Act out every new apprehension 
of truth. 

" First find thou truth, 
And though she lead from beaten path of men 
To unknown ways ; 
Her leading follow straight, 
And bide thy fate at heaven's gate." 

And finally the resurrection has a place in the 
preaching of the Christian pulpit. It is the 
proof that the life of the Spirit, the life of faith 
and hope and love, is the deathless life ; it is the 
proof that forgiveness is reasonable and possible 
with God, that a higher law rules than the end- 
less round of sin and suffering, that the vicarious 
life is the victorious life, and that the cost of life, 
its heartbreaks and losses and partings, has its 
heavenly compensation. If a man be risen with 
Christ, if he seeks the life of the heavenly king- 
dom, he has the evidence of experience of the 
risen Christ, the promise and foretaste of the 
immortal life. 

These truths, Christ's revelation of God, of 
man, his Sacrifice, faith, the Holy Spirit, and 
the Immortal Life, are the essential truths of the 
Gospel. Men will teach them in varying degree 
and proportion. The emphasis will be placed 
first on one truth and then on another according 
to the special condition of men. But in some 
way we should preach them all that men may 



The Contents of the Message 235 

have life, the eternal life that is through Jesus 
Christ. 

And two brief suggestions as to the spirit of 
teaching. Be positive and constructive in your 
preaching. Let your aim and spirit be the sal- 
vation of men as Christ's was. Take no pleas- 
ure in destroying even a superstitious faith, if 
you cannot put a purer one in its" place. Some 
things cannot be shaken. Criticism cannot 
touch the things that make for salvation. And 
these are to be proclaimed with all the resources 
of mind and speech and with all the enthusiasm 
of love. Don't make your pulpit a game of 
bowls, to see how many errors or contrary 
opinions you can knock down. The polemical 
spirit is rarely the helpful spirit. 

Put truth in a way to help men to live. If 
Christ is the centre and soul, then He will be 
more manifest. This is the test. 

Believe that there is a spiritual capacity and 
desire in men to which the Gospel you preach 
bears exact fitness. The listless, the indifferent, 
the critic, the scorner, may listen to your word 
and render it fruitless. But the earnest hearer 
will be there. Men will listen to your word as 
for their life. Preach a Gospel that saves, and 
believe that men will respond to your word. 



XII 
THE SOCIAL MESSAGE 



OUTLINE 

A Saving Gospel must be for the Whole Man, and for all the 
Relations of Man. 

The gospel message must be put in terms of social relation. 

The two extreme views: one puts stress on the person, 
the other on the environment. The two extremes must 
be harmonized. 
The Social Environment conditions the power of the Gospel in 
saving the Individual. 

Social conditions are to be changed if men are to be reached 
by the truth. 

Better social conditions are needed to sustain the new life. 
Does Christianity mean the Redemption of the whole life of 
man? 

Reasons why the interpreters of the Bible have failed to 
give its social teachings. 
The Social Message an essential part of the Bible. 

The first questions of the Old Testament social. 

Moses was called to his work through his social sympathies. 

The first law is essentially social. 

The second law is based on social ideals. 

The prophets are statesmen and reformers. 
The Social Message of the New Testament seems more indirect 
and secondary. 

Christ's social teachings are occasional. 

He seems detached from social problems, and above them. 
Hence His vision. 

His approach to society is by personal inner quickening. 

Many critics deny Christ's authority in social life. 

Frederic Harrison, John Stuart Mill, Mazzini. 

Christ, as awakening the sense of social relation and re- 
sponsibility, is back of social progress. 

Christ's first message is social. 

The Sermon on the Mount is the Magna Charta of society. 

His doctrine of the Kingdom is a social vision. 

His second coming is the completion of the Kingdom. 
Social Conditions demand the Social Interpretation of Chris- 
tianity. 

References : 

Peabody. "Jesus Christ and the Social Problem." 

Brooks. "The Social Unrest." 

Shailer Mathews. "The Social Teachings of the New 

Testament." 
Shailer Mathews. "The Church and the Changing Order." 
Rauschenbusch. "Christianity and the Social Crisis." 
Brown. "The Social Teachings of the Modern Pulpit." 
Nash. "The Genesis of the Social Conscience." 
238 



XII 

THE SOCIAL MESSAGE 

A message that gives life must be for the whole 
man. Salvation is not a future term, but a 
present life. It is not only for life in a glorified 
state, but for men on the earth, as members of 
the society of man. 

Men sometimes speak of " saving the soul" as 
though the soul were something that could be 
saved alone, as though the man were a dis- 
embodied spirit without passions and parts. 
In our desire to be true to Protestant and 
Evangelical theology, and put "the first things 
first," we have emphasized the individual out 
of his relations and made him an impossible 
creation, a fiction of our speculation. "A man 
alone is no man." A man is a man only as he 
is the member of a family, of a band of workers, 
of society, and of the State. We have exalted 
salvation by faith until, in popular thought, it is 
sometimes held that faith is the whole of sal- 
vation, " Saved souls" have ignored the Ser- 
mon on the Mount as though it were lacking in 



240 The Social Message 

spirituality. The emphasis for the moment 
should be changed and put where the age needs it, 
and the Spirit of Christ speaking through many 
prophetic voices is calling to us to make more 
real and living our message. 

The personal, spiritual message of the pulpit 
must not be lessened one whit ; its first work is 
to start and sustain the higher life of the Spirit : 
but the Gospel must also be expressed in terms 
of social relation if it is to inspire and direct the 
moral earnestness of men to-day. 

There are two extremes among equally earnest 
men. One class says, — they might be called 
the individualists of the pulpit, — "Get the man 
converted and all's got." If a man is a new 
creature through Christ Jesus, he will work out 
for himself a new society. At the Pan-Presby- 
terian Council at Toronto, in a discussion on 
" The Relation of the Church to the Labor Prob- 
lem," a notable preacher contended that the 
Church and the pulpit as such had absolutely 
nothing to do with the Labor Problem. Its 
sole business was with the individual, and that 
to secure a new spiritual life. The other class 
of teachers says: "There are conditions that 
make a decent life impossible, cesspools in which 
they who live must sin, or will sin and perish. 
Therefore change conditions and life will be 
true." These are two half truths. Each alone 



The Social Message 241 

is a practical fallacy; and it would be hard to 
say which might be the more dangerous. In 
Paternoster Row, London, on the windows of a 
shop of evangelistic literature, this question, in 
great, staring letters, was read : " Does the hog 
make the sty or the sty the hog?" We refuse 
to be fastened upon either horn of that dilemma. 
Our conception of the Gospel must be big enough 
to receive the truth in both statements ; to unite 
the two half truths into a whole truth, — (in the 
words of Dr. Oswald Dykes) "the personal and 
religious salvation of the soul from sin, and the 
ethical and social salvation of the community 
from wrong and suffering." Christianity stands 
for the highest life or it stands for nothing. It 
is more than the rescue of the soul ; it is God's 
way for the development and ennoblement of 
life. Something therefore is lacking in a Gos- 
pel that does not lead to the highest life. The 
pure waters of Christianity have been choked 
and defiled if they do not bless everything that 
they touch; if they do not give men better 
education, better conditions and quality and 
reward of work, more wholesome homes, a purer 
literature and time and taste to enjoy it, a 
happier recreation, and a more patriotic citizen- 
ship. 

The whole man must be considered if the soul 
is to be reached. Mr. Jacob Riis has said that 



242 The Social Message 

children that live in a room without windows 
will probably grow up without windows to their 
souls. A Christian service that does not con- 
cern itself about the kind of houses in which 
people live lacks the first element of humanity. 
Here is a bit of realism from a great Christian 
city : "There is not a heart which can feel that 
would not be torn and crushed could we know 
how many men and women there are to-night 
who have settled it, that things can never be 
worse for them in any conceivable world than 
they are in this. They no more fear death than 
they fear sleep; they have no more thought or 
concern about a life beyond the grave than they 
have about last year's weather. The great con- 
ceptions of the Fatherhood of God, the redemp- 
tion of the race through Jesus Christ, the power 
of the new life of faith on the Son of God, are 
meaningless formulae to untold men and women, 
fighting the battle from which there is no dis- 
charge but death; the grim struggle for sheer 
existence, with the chances at every turn of 
sickness, accident, and no work. These people 
are not infidel to the august and transcendent 
truths of religion. The pathos of it all is that 
they are past infidelity, they simply have no soul 
for them; it has dropped, fallen out. From 
their weariness and hopelessness has come an 
utter indifference, not only about the churches, 



The Social Message 243 

but the very God they are supposed to preach 
and teach." * 

" If you will take the trouble to go through the 
section of the city where the operatives of some 
factory are housed, and see with your own eyes 
the actual conditions of their lives; if you will 
visit the homes where by pressure of want the 
mother is also thrust into the mill with several 
of her young children besides ; if you will stand 
by as they take their pleasures and witness their 
poverty, not only in things material but in all 
the finer values of life, — you will need no com- 
mentary to tell you the meaning of that state- 
ment in Exodus as to the unresponsiveness of 
certain hearts because of the conditions of their 
toil. The spiritual tragedy which stands ugly 
and bare in whole sections of the worker's 
world is the most awful aspect of it. With 
these thousands of weary, beaten, and baffled 
men and women in mind, it seems like a cruel 
joke when we get together in our ministerial 
associations and read fancy little papers on 
'How to reach the Masses,' deciding perhaps 
that it can be done with a little more music, 
or a bit more of advertising, or with more hand- 
shaking at the door of the Church. Thousands 
of them hearken not to the prophet * for anguish 
of spirit and for cruel bondage.' The applica- 

1 Ambrose Sheppard, "Social Christianity," p. 90. 



244 The Social Message 

tion of Christian principles to social conditions 
is therefore demanded because their pathway 
to spiritual life is blocked for lack of it." * 

Miss Jane Addams said a while ago to a com- 
pany of ministers that there was little serious 
antagonism among workingmen to the Church, 
for to them the Church was nothing, — it did 
not come into their view. 

The millions of foreign workers come from 
lands where the Church has been in alliance with 
the State and so is the symbol of aristocratic 
privilege and oppressive power, opposed to the 
hopes of the democratic movement. Many of 
them are socialists, and the socialists as a body, 
in spite of many notable exceptions, regard re- 
ligion as a hindrance to the social state. In 
our voluntary churches, the financial support 
and control of the Church may be in the hands 
of men who are leaders in corporations or em- 
ployers of labor and lacking in humanity and in 
sympathy with the labor movement. The hand 
toilers in all civilized lands (and they will always 
be in the large majority) stand in such a physical 
and social environment that it is hard to reach 
them with the message of the Gospel. It re- 
quires a social wisdom, a passion to reach the 
man, stripped of all the accidents of life, which 
is sometimes lacking in the pulpit, to quicken 
1 Brown, "Social Message of the Pulpit," p. 15. 



The Social Message 245 

this " apparent death of the spiritual needs 
and cravings, this life under the low sky, this 
numbness of heart and conscience/ ' These 
conditions that absolutely prevent men from 
receiving the truth must be broken through, 
changed by the wisdom and devotion of Christian 
men, if the indifferent millions in our great cities 
that threaten to submerge our Christianity are 
to be reached. "No man is infidel to a great 
unselfish love." 

And further than this the social message of 
Christianity must go. It must not only break 
down the barriers that separate men, furnish the 
conditions for receiving the truth, but furnish 
the conditions for sustaining the new life. The 
Christian life, feeble at first, must have whole- 
some conditions for its growth. You might as 
well expect to grow grapes on the edge of a 
sulphur pit as expect strong and beautiful 
characters in an atmosphere of physical and 
moral malaria. At a meeting of young men on 
the east side, New York, where an appeal was 
made for the higher life of the city, one of them 
drew this pitiful picture of the conditions in 
which he lived. "Now you go to your decent 
home in a quiet street, where no harm comes to 
you or to your wife and children. And we — 
we go with our high resolves, the noble ambi- 
tions you have stirred, to our tenements where 



246 The Social Message 

evil lurks in the darkness at every step, where 
innocence is murdered in babyhood, where 
mothers bemoan the birth of a daughter as the 
last misfortune, where virtue is sold into a worse 
slavery than ever our fathers knew, and our 
sisters betrayed by paid panders, where the name 
of home is a bitter mockery. These are the 
standards to which we go from here." 

The words of Ambrose Sheppard, of Glasgow, 
who himself came from a factory boy to the 
pulpit, are none too strong : " Get men converted. 
Then put at their disposal the whole apparatus 
of moral, economic, and spiritual resource that 
they may strengthen into a saved society. How 
to win the masses of the people to Christ is no 
problem if it is to Christ we would win them. 
It is a question of faith, determination, prayer, 
passion, consecration/ ' 

Does Christianity mean the redemption of the 
whole life of man f Has the Gospel a message 
for man in every sphere and activity of his life ? 
A message for man as a member of a social 
organism ? What has Christianity to say about 
society is for the preacher to-day to know and to 
declare. 

The main teachings of the Bible as to social 
problems are so plain, rise so above all questions 
of criticism, that a general student cannot err 
as to their meaning. It does not follow that the 



The Social Message 247 

social teaching of Christianity can be gained from 
the ordinary Bible helps. The great theologians 
and the men who have written our commentaries 
have been men of the study, men of an intel- 
lectual and religious class, who have not lived 
in conditions of killing toil and social peril, 
and so have not been driven to find a social 
remedy in the Gospel. We see what we have 
the eyes to see. The Bible is such a Book of 
life that only life in its fullest, most varied sense 
can interpret it. Many men have not caught 
the social passion, and so they do not see the 
social message. That is the only charitable way 
to account for the individualistic conception 
so dominant in theology and the Church. The 
eyes of their understanding have not been opened 
to the actual life of men, or they would find a 
message that should break the bands of men and 
set them free to understand and follow the path 
of life. We have a few noble interpreters and 
this number will grow, but they must come out 
of the toil and suffering of the poor. 

Bishop Westcott has given us the social inter- 
pretation of Christianity, but he identified 
himself with the miners and factory men of 
North England. The Bishop of London has 
this emphasis, but he is known as the poor man's 
Bishop. Professor George Adam Smith has the 
prophet's spirit, but he is the friend of working 



248 The Social Message 

men, and is the elder of a church, not on the 
Avenue, but in the slums of Glasgow. 

The Social Message of Christianity is not a 
by-product, but an essential part, vital to its 
true understanding. The two questions that 
stand on the opening pages of the Bible are the 
two fundamental questions always, — Where 
art thou? and Where is thy brother? Man's 
relation to God and man's relation to his fellows, 
from these two have developed all the questions 
of religion and morality. The one is individual 
and the other is social, and we have Christ's own 
word for it that one is as important as the other. 
But they are not two separate words. They 
never can be safely divided; they are one in- 
separable Gospel. 

Moses, who stands back of law and Christian 
history, who is the personification of the old dis- 
pensation as Christ is of the new, was called to 
his work by his social sympathies. He was a 
statesman, the leader of a great national and 
economic revolution. The book of Exodus has 
been well called the history of a labor movement. 
The Law is as social as it is personal. Take the 
first law; the second half is all about social 
relations — life, its relations and duties in the 
family, in industry and the State. And in the 
first part of the Law, the Sabbath day stands as 
the bulwark of the poor, the first social force in 



The Social Message 249 

developing a just and humane civilization. It 
puts a limit on the hours of labor. 

And when we turn to the second law, what- 
ever be our critical theories, whether we regard 
it as Mosaic legislation or the work of the 
prophets, we must recognize its social ideals. 

The land belonged to the people and could not 
be permanently alienated. The poor gleaned 
after the reapers, not as a matter of charity, 
but as a right coming from their part in the 
national domain. Interest was prohibited, be- 
cause it would tend to make one class dependent 
upon another and so lessen the social equality 
of the people. Though slavery was permitted, 
the slave was a member of the family, and pro- 
vision in the year of jubilee was made against 
perpetual slavery. There was no feudal class 
as among other people. A social democracy was 
the essential basis of Jewish life. The popular 
song of Wycklif s time shows the democratic 
interpretation of Jewish history: 

"When Adam delved and Eve span, 
Where was then the gentleman." 

The striking contrast has been drawn between 
Jewish law and Roman law; Jewish law estab- 
lished the rights of man, with special regard for 
the poor, Roman law always had more respect 
for property and privilege. Such ideals grew 



250 The Social Message 

out of the deep religious life of the people. 
The man was more than material things. 

The prophets are the great figures of the Old 
Testament, as they are the true interpreters and 
leaders of Jewish life. They were all statesmen, 
patriots, reformers. Their message is social 
and national, never private and personal. 
Every prophet arose through some social or 
national crisis and found his message through 
his social interest. Religion and social ethics 
with them are inseparable. They were the 
champions of the poor and the oppressed ; they 
laid bare the social sins that made worship a 
mockery and that sapped the strength of the 
nation. They showed that the privilege of 
God's people rested solely on a righteous life, on 
principles common to all men; and through 
their social teaching Jehovah was revealed as 
the righteous one, the God of the whole earth. 
Jewish religion was vital as it was bound with the 
national hope; it grew narrow and mechanical 
as it lost the social aspects in the priestly. 

When we come to the New Testament, the 
social message seems at first indirect and second- 
ary. Christ's teachings have the personal accent ; 
they are to bring man and God into fellowship. 
He seems at times detached from social problems, 
like one so intent upon a great mission, the eye 
so filled with a great vision, as to be enrapt in the 



The Social Message 251 

doing of it and not to see many things along the 
way. 

His social teachings are certainly occasional 
more than systematic, the suggestion of prin- 
ciples and motives that men are to apply to 
themselves. For this reason equally earnest 
men have radically differed about His teachings. 

But the very separation of Christ gives Him His 
wisdom. He is seemingly detached from social 
problems, not because He is indifferent to them, 
but because He stands above their dust and din. 
He sees man as God does. The very elevation of 
Christ gives Him His breadth of vision and His 
social wisdom. His occasional word comes with 
the power of unclouded vision. "The difference 
between Christ and the prophets, " says Dr. 
Peabody, " was not so much one of social inten- 
tion as of social horizon. The work of a re- 
former is for his own age, that of a revealer is 
for all ages." 

And then Christ's approach to the age and its 
problems was not by a programme of reform, not 
by organizations and mass movements, but by 
personal, inner quickening. He made new men 
and sent them forth to make a new world. The 
seed of the new world were the children of the 
Kingdom, and this gave Christ His social power. 

But to stop with this would be a most inade- 
quate statement of Christ's position. Many 



252 The Social Message 

social critics seem unable to understand Christ's 
position. As to personal morality we admit, 
they say, that Christ was perfect. As to in- 
dividual character, He is the ideal. But man 
must be tested by his relation to society. We 
live in the social age, an age of growing social 
consciousness. Can Christ be an example and 
guide of the modern world of work and play, 
of society and government? 

Mr. Frederic Harrison, the English Positivist, 
whose earnestness no man will question, admits 
the power of Christianity for the moral life of 
the individual, but as to the political and in- 
dustrial life of the present generation, charges 
that "Christianity not only fails, but is crimi- 
nally complacent of the evils. " John Stuart 
Mill, in his essay on Liberty, comparing Christian 
ethics with pagan, says, "While in the morality 
of the best pagan nations, duty to the state holds 
even a disproportionate place, infringing even 
upon the just liberty of the individual, in 
purely Christian ethics, that grand department 
of duty is scarcely noticed or acknowledged/ ' 
And Joseph Mazzini, better entitled to the name 
prophet than most of the moderns, while holding 
Jesus supreme in " everything that concerns the 
heart and the affections/ ' claims that as to the 
conception of the collective life of humanity, 
he falls "below the height of the idea of which a 



The Social Message 253 

glimpse has been revealed in our day." These 
are typical examples, and we must reverently ask, 
Does Christ meet the test? If Christ is to be 
tested by the life of His Church, it must be sadly 
confessed that the charge is partly true. 

But it fails to interpret the finer influences of 
Christianity, and utterly fails to measure the 
true character and teaching of Christ: His 
picture of the new man and the new world, and 
the radical power of the principles of the new 
life. 

Christ, as the soul of positive, outreaching 
goodness, condemning sin and quickening virtue, 
awakens the sense of personal relation and per- 
sonal responsibility, and so is back of all true 
social conception and progress. The law of love 
which He lays upon every conscience, the en- 
thusiasm for humanity with which He would 
fill every heart, makes Christianity a mission- 
ary force for the uplifting of the lowest. His 
first message, at Nazareth, which Drummond 
finely calls the programme of Christianity, is a 
social message. The Sermon on the Mount put 
into life would make a new heaven and a new 
earth. The Kingdom of God, His great vision 
and His great imperative, is a society of men who 
have the filial spirit towards God and the fra- 
ternal spirit towards men, and embraces every 
true interest of mankind. His coming again is 



254 The Social Message 

best interpreted as the triumph and completion 
of the Kingdom. The very nations shall bring 
their glory and honor into it. 

It is true there are many different interpreta- 
tions of the Kingdom of God ; but to one who has 
the social consciousness of the age, the social 
view is the key that unlocks its meaning. 

John the Baptist's preaching had the so- 
cial tone, — righteousness and equality. Social 
wrongs were the real obstacles to the Kingdom, 
hence he prepared the way by preaching social 
righteousness. 

Jesus received John's baptism and began 
His ministry with John's word, The Kingdom at 
hand. He had the prophet's spirit and con- 
tinued the prophet's word. 

He modified and corrected the common na- 
tional hope of the Kingdom, showing that its 
coming was not through some great and sudden 
catastrophe, but through the law of growth and 
life. He taught the organic growth of the new 
society. It was a human and universal hope. 
The Kingdom was present, ever at work, not 
getting men into some future heaven, but making 
of earth an heavenly life. Jesus never views man 
apart from society. He has special interest in 
the poor and lowly. How full of social spirit 
are his parables ! The simple teaching of the 
Fatherhood of God and so the brotherhood of 



The Social Message 255 

man is the most dynamic social force in the 
world. Eternal life is the loving, serving life. 
An anti-social life is the anti-Christian life. The 
highest fellowship with God is possible only to 
the life with the greatest humanity. 

Christ is the first and the last, the goal of all 
moral and spiritual progress, the inspirer of the 
motive strong enough to break the barriers of 
pride and selfishness and bring the promised age 
of brotherhood. In the picture of Revelation, 
the battle between the Kingdom and the world, 
the root of David is alone worthy to open the 
book and loose the seals of human history. 

The social message of the Gospel must be 
presented if the pulpit works with some of the 
strongest forces of life. There is something that 
environs and conditions the very message that 
we give, and that is the life of the age. The 
message must have the element of timeliness, if 
we are to work with the forces of God. 

It is the social age. The Gospel must have the 
social emphasis to create a finer sense of duty and 
responsibility; to convince the world of right- 
eousness; to make possible the religious life 
and growth of men ; and to give earnest men the 
sufficient goal and motive for social progress. 
The social conditions that demand the social 
interpretation of Christianity make it a critical 
time for the Church. "If the Church would be 



256 The Social Message 

as significant as its past and its Founder make 
possible, it can no longer preach merely an in- 
dividualistic salvation. It must educate the 
social sympathies of its children ; it must teach 
that the question of right and wrong must have 
its answer from the counting-room as well as 
from the pulpit; it must train its members to 
trust their Christian impulse to side with what- 
ever cause is true and beautiful and sane; it 
must teach that, if there can be no regenerate 
society without regenerate men, neither can there 
be regenerate men without a regenerate society. 
And therefore, for the sake of all, it must fulfil 
its central duty of throwing into an irreligious 
but generous age a host of sons and daughters 
filled with the fraternal enthusiasm of its 
Founder. This is the evangelicalism that our 
age needs; the Gospel of a man's saving his 
life, and the Gospel of the Kingdom of God." ' 

1 Mathews, "The Church and the Changing Order," 
p. 180. 



PART III 
THE METHOD 



" It were to be wished the flaws were fewer 
In the earthen vessels holding treasure 
Which lies as safe as in a golden ewer. 
But the main thing is — Does it hold good measure ? — 
Heaven soon sets right all other matter." 

— Browning. 



XIII 

EVANGELISTIC PREACHING 



OUTLINE 

The General Mission of the Preacher. 

The urgent message of New Testament preachers. 

Their varied appeals. 
The Evangelistic and the Educational views of Salvation and 
of Preaching. 

Their union in a true ministry. 
Relation of Evangelistic Preaching to the Church. 

Its power dependent on the spiritual life of the Church. 

The work for pastors and officers. 

The message to the Church. 
The Truths of the Evangelistic Sermon. 

A more present and penetrative interpretation of sin. 

The personal work for men. 
The Special Call for Pastoral Evangelism. 
The Variety of Motives in Evangelistic Preaching. 
The Marked Features of the Pastor-Preacher in his Evangelistic 
Work. 

References : 

Mason. "The Ministry of Conversion." 
Goodell. "Pastoral Evangelism." 
Dawson. "The Evangelistic Note." 
Newell. "Revivals, How and When." 
Finney, Life of. 

Brooks. "Lectures on Preaching." Lect. 8. 
Johnson. "The Ideal Ministry." Lect. 26. 
Dale. " Lectures on Preaching. " Lect. 7. 
Beecher. " Yale Lectures. " Vol. II, Lect. 8-11. 



XIII 

EVANGELISTIC PREACHING 

Emphasis has been placed upon the vital 
theory of preaching. The man comes first. 
The Gospel of the Incarnation can be proclaimed 
only by a spiritual manhood. Christ took in- 
finite pains with the training of a few, and sent 
them forth to be His witnesses and messengers. 
And this is the unchanging law of the Evangel. 
Faith spreads by the words and touch of a vi- 
talized person. The preacher is a witness and a 
messenger. He has a definite message to give, 
and this with a definite purpose to accomplish. 
The preacher is a man with a mission. The 
general idea of the mission of the preacher is plain 
and undisputed. It is to interest men to enter 
upon and persist in the Christian life. It is so to 
speak the truth that men shall be led into, and 
grow in, the life of the children of God, knowing 
more of God in Christ and His will, growing in 
the graces of character that belong to His chil- 
dren, performing the duties, entering upon the 
service that grows out of the relation of God and 
261 



262 Evangelistic Preaching 

man, building up a righteous character and a 
righteous society of men. 

The preachers of the New Testament are ever 
urging men to be hearers and doers of the Word, 
to repent of sin and believe in the Lord Jesus 
Christ, to take Him for teacher and Saviour 
and Lord. They are always trying to convince 
men of the importance of their message, and to 
persuade them to believe it, and heed it, and 
obey it at whatever cost. And to this end they 
appeal to a variety of motives, the moral need 
of man, the seeking and suffering love of God, 
the attractive power of the Cross, the cleansing 
and impelling force of the Christ-love, the moral 
beauty of Christ, the love of growth and per- 
fection, the supremacy of duty, the privilege 
of fellowship and service, the danger of neglect, 
the glory that is to be revealed. They appeal 
to reason and conscience that they may in- 
fluence the will. They picture to the imagina- 
tion that the emotions may respond to the vivid 
perception, and desire give ease and strength to 
the choice of the will. 

So in view of the large practical purpose of 
preaching, there are two kinds of preaching; 
the two shading into one another, often both 
found in the same sermon, and yet sometimes 
distinct, and each to be discussed by itself, — 
evangelistic and pastoral preaching. 



Evangelistic Preaching 263 

We say that the mission of preaching is the 
salvation of men. But practically there are two 
views of salvation : the one regards it as a trans- 
action, thinks of salvation as a definite act, and 
speaks of a saved man ; the other regards it as 
a process of spiritual training, beginning some- 
times in a definite conscious act of repentance 
and faith, but continuing through many acts, a 
life-process of learning, of discipline, of growth, 
leading to the perfect life. Christianity is 
God's way of making a man. 

And so there are practically two very dif- 
ferent views of preaching. The one is evan- 
gelistic. It emphasizes and reiterates a few 
primary truths that tend to conviction and 
conversion; it makes much of special service 
and revival methods ; it aims at bringing men 
to confession of faith, and union with the 
Church; it is tempted to look for visible and 
tabulated results, is impatient at the slow and 
patient processes of instruction, the leavening 
work of the Gospel, and moves from place to 
place seeking for new conquests. 

The other view lays stress upon the educa- 
tional work of the pulpit, dwells upon Christian 
nurture, carefully instructs in the Scriptures, 
gains the respect and friendship of an increasing 
number of people, establishes permanent rela- 
tions with the community, is willing to sow the 



264 Evangelistic Preaching 

seed with faith in the certainty of the harvest, 
though another should reap it, applies the truth 
in every sphere of life, and tries to establish the 
Kingdom of God upon earth. 

If one were compelled to choose between the 
two, there is no question which is the nobler 
and truer view of preaching, which has the 
more Scriptural aim. But we are not com- 
pelled to choose. Both should go together. 
Either alone is partial and imperfect, and may 
be exaggerated into an injurious extreme. 
Some men, no doubt, are naturally evangelists; 
their gifts and experiences fit them to arouse 
men and persuade to definite committal to 
the Christian life. And there may always be 
the need of a special class of evangelists in the 
Church. But the discussion is of the ordinary 
work of the ministry, and for the preacher who 
is also the pastor. And such a preacher should 
have the largest aim of the sermon in view, the 
beginning and continuance and perfection of 
the Christian life, salvation in its Gospel sweep 
and reach, a saved life and a perfected society. 

How shall the preacher do the work of an 
evangelist ? The preacher is a part of organized 
Christianity. He usually speaks from the pul- 
pit of a church, and his word is mightily helped 
or hindered by the spiritual life of the church 
to which he ministers. The Church is crippled 



Evangelistic Preaching 265 

in its influence by worldliness and sin. A 
formal and worldly Christianity has no power 
of transmission. In such lives the Spirit of 
God is neither desired nor works. 

If the preacher is placed in a church lacking 
in spiritual vitality, satisfied with its condition 
and position in the community, a social religious 
club, with no yearning or outreaching for the 
lives of others, what can he do for the increase 
of spiritual life ? The atmosphere will chill the 
evangelistic word. The church must have a 
renewal of the right spirit, before transgressors 
can be taught God's ways, and sinners shall be 
converted. Men will have no faith in a Gospel 
that does not make a better life. What can the 
preacher do? He can begin with himself, 
searching the heart in the light of the truth, and 
turning out evil ; he can open every part of his 
life to the purifying and energizing influences of 
the Spirit. He can pray for men until he shall 
love them and yearn for their salvation. He 
can open his heart to the officers of the church. 
Dr. Newell, the author of " Revivals, How and 
When ? " once said to his session : " My heart is 
breaking; I cannot live in this stupor. What 
can we do?" The officers of the church are 
generally the best Christian men in the com- 
munity. Seldom will one of their number be 
found who will not answer the pastor's heart in 



266 Evangelistic Preaching 

the desire for deepened spiritual life in the 
church. Pastor and officers can have earnest 
consultation together, and concert of prayer 
for the object desired. Wherever a Christian 
is found concerned for the church or community, 
bring that life into cooperation of prayer and 
labor. Talk with the Bible teachers, make them 
feel their place of influence, infuse into them 
your own hope and purpose. The pastor as the 
teacher of his teachers has an unsurpassed 
opportunity of unifying and deepening the 
religious life of his best co-workers. Do not 
multiply meetings — and so call undue atten- 
tion to the machinery of evangelistic effort. 
Let the effort be directed solely to enlarged life ; 
and when the renewed life of the church and 
the increasing attention of the people demand 
added services of the church, be ready to give 
them, and not before. Do not talk about re- 
vival or even pray much for it by name. Be 
faithful to the church. Do not yield to the 
temptation to preach to the people, before the 
church is ready to cooperate. Preach to 
Christians, searching, fearless, living sermons, 
and follow the same lines of truth in the mid- 
week service and in pastoral visitation. Use 
all the cogency of oft-repeated truth. The best 
evangelists and missioners insist upon this work 
of preparation, and for several weeks before 



Evangelistic Preaching 267 

special services in any city, spiritual preparation 
is the theme ; the inner life of the Christian, the 
need of repentance, a higher standard of living, 
personal duty to men, these are the themes, 
reiterated from the pulpit, and in lecture room 
and in ministers' meetings. It is preparing the 
way of the Lord. 

The parochial missions in the Episcopal 
Church emphasize, in the same way, the neces- 
sity of spiritual preparation. "The specific 
character of a parochial mission is the renewal 
and deepening of the spiritual life in it." Such 
spiritual preparation on the part of pastor and 
officers will lead certainly to a renewed life in 
the church. Men will feel the new vitality. 
The Holy Spirit will press the truth upon them, 
through the witness of new life. The earnest, 
attentive, inquiring spirit will be abroad. The 
atmosphere of the church will be right so as to 
give life to the message of the pulpit, and be a 
fit home for the new life the message aims to give. 

Now the truth preached must aim directly at 
repentance and faith. Not that each sermon 
should be evangelistic in form. A sermon may 
do more for the Kingdom of Christ by increas- 
ing the knowledge of the truth, or establishing 
in practical righteousness, than the most fervent 
appeal to sinners. But all truth is for life, and 
the sermon answers its end only by promoting 



268 Evangelistic Preaching 

larger spiritual life. It must have a direct and 
intense purpose to reach the lives of men, and 
such purpose will often preach the truth that 
calls for decision, — the acts of repentance, faith, 
and obedience. 

The central doctrines of God, the soul, sin, 
and judgment, the Atonement, repentance, faith, 
obedience, must be dwelt upon, and so dwelt 
upon that they shall possess the mind. It will 
be interesting to notice the essential agreement 
of Protestant and Romanist, as to the truth to 
be used in evangelizing methods. Says Dr. 
McGlynn, of St. Stephen's Church, New York : 
"As regards the best methods of reaching the 
hearts of the people and effecting the greatest 
spiritual good, I have no doubt that, whether 
in missions, or in the ordinary parochial preach- 
ing, the best preaching is that which gives plain, 
simple, homely instruction of Gospel truths on 
the simple, ordinary duties of the various states 
of life. It is the urging of the motives for con- 
trition for sin, to be found in the suffering which 
Christ underwent for sin, in the judgments which 
He threatens, in the unreasonableness and tur- 
pitude of sin as revealed by divine truth, and 
especially in urging the highest of all motives, 
of filial love of God, which drives out fear, 
and makes the service of God a pleasure and a 
delight to His children." 



Evangelistic Preaching 269 

Does not sin need a more present and practical 
interpretation ? The organic nature of life, the 
increased interdependence and complexity of 
society, have made old conceptions of sin inade- 
quate. The blood of others rests upon too many 
things that we use, the prosperity of the Chris- 
tian world is built too much upon the pinched 
and crippled lives of the little ones with whom 
Christ identifies Himself. The convincing word 
is one that shall awaken the individual in rela- 
tion to the corporate life, making the sin of 
society press on the conscience of each. The 
awakened social sense will give a deeper con- 
sciousness of sin and need and lead to the 
Christ, whose sacrifice is the law of the new life. 
We must expect conversions from such preach- 
ing. Is the attitude of the ministry one of 
expectancy? Would not a simple heart cry 
for salvation startle some men as they come 
down from the pulpit ? 

We must watch the slightest tokens of con- 
viction, and have others interested in such 
cases, and be prompt and wise to use the oppor- 
tunity. Let it be known by an occasional hearty 
word from the pulpit that you will be in the 
study after service, or at home a certain hour, 
to talk with any one concerning the religious 
life. Let the word be given in such a way that 
the timid and faltering may be attracted, that 



270 Evangelistic Preaching 

its acceptance will not mean necessarily interest 
in the question of personal salvation. 

We must strive by personal effort, attractive 
and forceful preaching, and the most efficient 
church methods, to reach and persuade the 
careless and the indifferent. The right kind of 
pastoral work comes in here as a powerful factor. 
The personal conversation should be had at 
some time with every man of the parish. And 
the right relation to men, the reputation for 
sincerity and humanity and sacrifice, will make 
such conversation a welcome word. The even- 
ing service should be largely for the people. If 
it is not possible to draw in some of those not 
members of a regular congregation, if the evening 
audience were only a small part of the regular 
attendance, it would be a serious question 
whether the evening service should not be given 
up for some other place or work. 

It may be that we have too much preaching 
to the same people. The Church would gain 
if more preachers were free to devote the even- 
ing to an aggressive evangelism. However, in 
most churches in village and city, the problems 
of the evening service can be solved by energy, 
wisdom, and spiritual devotion. Enlist the 
young people to bring in the young people ; make 
the most of Christian song. Give the people a 
larger part in the service. Let the prayers be 



Evangelistic Preaching 271 

simple, brief, and fervent. The sermon may not 
be always evangelistic, but often so. And 
brevity here will be a virtue. Fifteen minutes 
of simple, direct, bright, intense speech, on some 
great Scripture truth, some great problem of 
life and duty, will be enough. Sometimes, espe- 
cially during the winter months, the evening 
service can be followed by an after meeting not 
longer than fifteen minutes, when close contact 
can be had with interested persons, and personal 
conversation can be held with all who wish. 
Such a service will impress the Church constantly 
with its direct spiritual mission, and make the 
community feel that its spiritual welfare is the 
thought and prayer and effort of the Church. 

The office of the evangelist is to be recognized 
in the Church ; and his special work in destitute 
and waste places, in the union efforts in our 
cities, with definite purpose to reach the neg- 
lected and indifferent classes, is to be honored. 
Some men are gifted in the truth and method 
of persuasion. No single teacher has the large- 
ness of nature and truth to reach all men. And 
the evangelist may bring to light the truth long 
known. The age calls for men, " fitted as instru- 
ments to use what the people believe and know, 
in order to bring them to a decision for God." 

But a passing evangelism is not the chief in- 
strument for the growth of the Kingdom. The 



272 Evangelistic Preaching 

evangelism of Christian lands depends upon the 
instruction of a stable pulpit. And the pastor, 
in most cases, is best fitted to do this work. He 
has permanent relations to the community; 
men know his life and prize his friendship ; and 
this personal touch can remove prejudice and 
indifference, and give the sympathetic knowledge 
to speak the fitting word. The mass-movements 
in religion of this social age fail to reach the 
masses. Men are to be won within the com- 
munity, not from without, by the constraints 
and inducements of friendship, by the personal 
touch that symbols the Messianic entrance into 
the hopes and fears of men, their toils and strug- 
gles and sorrows, their sin and aspiration. 
Every preacher should have the ambition to be 
a soul-winner, to do the work of an evangelist. 
"The pastor must not forget those unsatis- 
factory and unsatisfied ones who, at any given 
moment, are probably the majority of his 
parishioners. The parish priest is always 
tempted to forget them, especially in great 
town-parishes, where he has extensive organi- 
zations to manage, and things move prosper- 
ously along, and the numbers of communicants 
are so large as to weaken the sense of their being 
small in proportion to what they should be. We 
need an increasing number of ministers who 
keep steadily before them the duty that they owe 



Evangelistic Preaching 273 

to the less promising portion of their flock. 
How seriously the Ordinal insists upon this part 
of our duty : ' Never cease your labor, your care 
and diligence, till you have done all that lieth 
in you to bring all that are committed to your 
charge unto that agreement in the faith and 
knowledge of God, that there be no place left 
among you either for error in religion, or for 
viciousness in life.'" 1 

A word should be said as to the variety of 
motives to be appealed to in evangelistic preach- 
ing. Says Dr. W. M. Taylor, in his "Ministry of 
the Word," "To tell men over and over again 
that they ought to repent and believe the Gos- 
pel, to entreat them, no matter with what 
vehemence, to accept Christ, will rarely produce 
any real results. I doubt whether we suffi- 
ciently consider the variety of motives which 
bring men to Christ, or the kind of preaching 
which is likely to call these motives into vigor- 
ous and effective action.' ' 

Some men begin the Christian life under a 
sense of duty. There is no keen sense of sin, 
no fear of penalty, but Christ appeals to con- 
science, and He is obeyed. We should so pre- 
sent the moral greatness of Christ that obedience 
to Him will be seen as the supreme duty. 

Other men are dissatisfied with themselves, 
Mason, "The Ministry of Conversion," p. 21. 



274 Evangelistic Preaching 

especially youth, and they know not why. 
Common things do not appeal to them. There 
is a time in the life of boys and girls when they 
reach beyond self after some other food. It is 
the unconscious call of God, the stirring of the 
higher life. They are capable of love and devo- 
tion, if Christ can be presented in the fulness 
and glory of His life. It is the appeal to moral 
imagination. Such studies in the psychology of 
child-life and youth as President G. Stanley 
Hall, Professor Coe, and Dr. Starbuck, should 
make the preacher's work more rational and 
effective. Happy the man who uses the tide of 
life to bear the soul on towards God. 

There are natures that early have strong in- 
stincts for the spiritual. From love of nature, 
of poetry, of music, they are idealists ; they feel 
the mystery of life and the presence of God. 
And they are easily won by Christ as the reve- 
lation of God and the giver of life. To such, 
the mystical elements of the Gospel make the 
strongest appeal. 

Another class have a sense of shame over moral 
failure. They know the power of sin. They 
have tried again and again and have failed, and 
they are in danger of moral despair. Christ as 
the giver of victory, as the power over evil, is 
the Gospel that they need. Some are drawn to 
Christ by His moral perfection, and others by 



Evangelistic Preaching 275 

His love. Children, especially, are easily won 
by the story of the Cross. But the majority of 
men are indifferent, or absorbed, not conscious 
of moral guilt or sensitive to spiritual truth. 
How to awaken the sense of need and desire is 
the real problem of the preacher. Sometimes 
by hunting a particular sin out, as Edwards did ; 
sometimes by such an ideal of goodness that the 
soul stands condemned before it; and some- 
times the sacrifice of Christ will give the heart of 
flesh. 

How far shall we appeal to fear ? Men are not 
easily frightened, and the appeal has lost some- 
thing of its force. It is not the highest motive. 
Yet it is an unmistakable appeal of Christ, and 
dull and hardened natures may never awake 
save by the terrible picture of the penalty of sin, 
"the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is 
not quenched." Sin is something to be afraid of. 

The man who can picture the growth of the 
soul in evil with a vivid realism, put the inner 
life and tendency on the canvas before the eyes, 
will make his word " living and active, . . . and 
quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the 
heart." 

Such realism will be found in Bushnell's ser- 
mons, "The Capacity of Religion Extirpated 
by Disuse" and "The Power of an Endless Life." 
Phillips Brooks was a master interpreter of life. 



276 Evangelistic Preaching 

The moral decline of young manhood was never 
more truthfully portrayed than in his sermon, 
' ' Unspotted from the World . " " Your grown-up 
boy is wise in bad things which he used to know 
nothing about. He has a hard conscience now, 
instead of the soft and tender one he used to 
carry. He is scornful about sacred things, in- 
stead of devout as he was once. He is no longer 
gentle, but cruel; no longer earnest, but flip- 
pant; no longer enthusiastic, but cynical. He 
tolerates evils that he used to hate. He makes 
excuses for passions that he once thought were 
horrible. He qualifies and limits the absolute 
standards of truthfulness and purity. His life 
no longer sounds with a perfectly clear ring or 
shines with a perfectly white lustre." 1 

If evangelistic preaching is to be real, free 
from partial views of life and mediaeval views 
of truth, we must have a growing conception of 
Christ's view of the worth of man. The sense of 
the value of the soul will make the Gospel a 
divine certainty, save the preacher from despis- 
ing or ignoring any man for whom Christ died, 
give proper significance to single truths, and 
single acts and experiences, and maintain their 
proper relation to the whole nature of man and 
the immeasurable reach of salvation. 

We do not see Christ clearly if men do not 
»Vol. 1,175. 



Evangelistic Preaching 277 

become more precious to us and we have a grow- 
ing passion for souls. "Go and try to save a 
soul and you will see how well it is worth sav- 
ing, how capable it is of the most complete sal- 
vation. Not by pondering upon it, nor by 
talking of it, but by serving it you learn its 
preciousness. And so the Christian, living and 
dying for his brethren's souls, learns the value 
of those souls for which Christ lived and died." 1 

In conclusion, what features should mark the 
work of the pastor-preacher who would also do 
the work of an evangelist ? 

He should preach sermons repeatedly that aim 
at repentance and faith, at immediate decision 
for the Christian life. The note of urgency will 
often be heard in the full giving of the Evangel. 

From pastoral experience, a list should be 
made of those who seem to have religious con- 
viction and feeling, who should take the step of 
faith. A study should be made of their natures 
and environment, and preaching especially 
adapted to their condition. 

Certain periods of the Church, as communion 
seasons, may direct the form of pulpit teaching, 
and sermons given designed to bring men into 
faith and into the fellowship of the Church. 
Such sermons should be kept free from con- 
ventional appeals, marked by entire naturalness 
1 Brooks, " Lectures on Preaching," p. 280. 



278 Evangelistic Preaching 

and reasonableness, the peculiar expression from 
the study of individual natures and motives. 

Evangelistic teaching should be followed by 
the personal work of the pastor. " Hand-picked 
fruit is the best." Private conversation, the 
frank word of love and desire, is the way to 
make truth effective, and action controlling and 
permanent. 

Wise evangelism will always be built upon 
thorough instruction. The call to action will 
come from convinced reason and a clear sense 
of duty. The aim will not be to swell the roll 
of the Church, but increase the Kingdom of 
God. 



XIV 
EXPOSITORY PREACHING 



OUTLINE 

A Teaching Ministry. 

Its power. 

Its objects. 

The types of sermons. 
Difficulties of the Expository Sermon. 

Popular desire for persuasion. 

The changed views of the Bible and of life. 

Can it be made interesting ? 
Definition of the Expository Sermon. 

Two features: (1) A connected passage. (2) Interpreta- 
tion for present life. 
The Advantages of the Expository Sermon. 

Preacher and hearer brought into contact with the Spirit. 

Biblical knowledge increased. 

Intelligent, balanced views of truth. 

The preacher enabled wisely to discuss all needful topics. 

Enriches the preacher. 
Examples of the Expository Method. 
Suggestions as to Expository Method. 

Selection of passage. 

Rhetorical order. 

Singleness of thought and purpose. 

Use of illustration, argument, appeal. 

Variety of treatment. 
The Formation of the Habit. 

References : 

Pattison. "The Making of the Sermon." Lect. 

5, 6. 
Dale. "Lectures on Preaching." Lect. 8. 
Taylor. "The Ministry of the Word." Lect. 7. 
Bruce. "The Training of the Twelve." 
Maclaren. ' ' Sermons." 
Robertson. "Lectures on 1st Corinthians." 



280 



XIV 
EXPOSITORY PREACHING 

The preacher is first and chiefest the teacher. 
It is his duty to make known the truths of 
Christ in such a way as to form right habits of 
thought, conduct, worship, and work, to train a 
righteous and godly life. Misconceptions and 
prejudices must be removed, religious indif- 
ference and moral stupor broken, high ideals of 
life held up and divine motives brought to 
bear, reason enlightened, conscience awakened, 
the will directed to right conduct; and all this 
implies the careful teacher. Eloquence may 
render a doubtful service, and enthusiasm be- 
come a fickle fire ; but the clear and connected 
presentation of Scripture truth is the means of a 
rational faith and an abiding Church. 

Why are the Scotch the most genuinely re- 
ligious people of modern times; and, small in 
numbers and unfavored, the leaders of the Eng- 
lish-speaking world in every realm of higher 
thought ? Because Scotland for generations has 
had a thoughtful and devoted pulpit, whose chief 

281 



282 Expository Preaching 

work has been the thorough teaching of the Word 
of God. And in comparison, the fickle religious 
life of our own land, too often stimulated by sen- 
sations and swept by novelties of doctrine, is the 
product of a pulpit eager for immediate result, 
and impatient of the long processes of spiritual 
instruction. There is special call to-day for a 
teaching ministry. "The teachers shall shine 
as the brightness of the firmament, and they 
that turn many to righteousness as the stars, 
for ever and ever." 

Four specific objects may be gained by a 
teaching ministry: growth in spiritual knowl- 
edge; growth in Christian graces; light, en- 
couragement, comfort, to the doubting, weary, 
and sorrowing ; knowledge of duty and ways of 
Christian work, to present the complete idea of 
Christian service. 

We have to preach a life, and we cannot be 
content until we help men to fashion their own 
lives after the divine pattern. Pastoral teach- 
ing is for the formation of right moral habits, 
and for the discipline and direction of the 
spiritual life. It includes at least four types of 
sermons, the expository, doctrinal, apologetic, 
and ethical. The classification, while in no sense 
strict, may be justified on practical grounds. 
Every message of the pulpit should be exposi- 
tory, the effort to interpret and apply some 



Expository Preaching 283 

word of God. The topical sermon, the most 
frequent form in the American pulpit, differs 
only in the freedom and individuality of its 
method. Doctrinal, apologetic, ethical sermons 
may all be expositions, or treated in the topical 
spirit. However, pastoral teaching demands 
special attention to that form of the sermon in 
which the element of instruction is stronger 
than that of persuasion. 

Expository sermons are the hardest to give, 
and the most needed by the Church to-day. It 
is true that the people do not ask for such preach- 
ing with any united or insistent voice, but their 
need is none the less great. The objection will 
be made, we do not need interpretation of the 
Bible in the pulpit; there are other ways for 
such instruction; we know now more than we 
do ; but we need to be roused and kindled with 
eloquence. But the many will never have re- 
ligious teaching save through the pulpit, and 
the instability of faith, the low standards of 
practice, the " itching ears" of multitudes, the 
followers of any sensation monger, prove that 
the pulpit by more thorough instruction must 
establish the Church in the faith. 

A more serious objection is found in the 
changed attitude towards the Scriptures. As 
religious literature they are to be interpreted 
in their spirit, not letter, not in the authority 



284 Expository Preaching 

of single passages, but as the record of religious 
movements and the progressive revelation of 
God. This makes the expository method, the 
dealing with words and clauses, useless, it is 
claimed. Noble religious teachers say that 
the day of the expository sermon is over. 
The pulpit must use a larger, freer interpreta- 
tion. 

Then it is held that life is a continuous reve- 
lation of God, and that the removal of the line 
between sacred and secular, the recognition of 
the spiritual element in all life, lessens the im- 
portance of expository sermons, and places em- 
phasis upon the great topics of religion. 

The changed attitude towards the Bible and 
life does call for a new spirit and method in ex- 
position, but cannot change the need of such 
preaching. The present Bible is a more living 
message, Christ is no less Saviour and Master; 
and the exposition of the lives and events 
through which God has spoken, especially the 
interpretation of Christ the living Word, must 
ever be the divinest way of awakening and train- 
ing the spiritual life of men, and in making men 
realize that God is in His world. 

But can the expository sermon be made in- 
teresting? And the question is an implied ob- 
jection. Spurgeon tells of a series of sermons 
on the Epistle to the Hebrews in his boyhood. 



Expository Preaching 285 

The writer, he says, in that Epistle " urges us to 
suffer the word of exhortation — and we did." 
But there is no reason why this kind of preaching 
should be dull. "If we put into our expository 
work the fruits of our hardest thinking, our most 
affluent reading, and our most spiritually sensi- 
tive feeling," the Word will stand forth in some- 
thing of its rich and inspiring life. It will have 
unity and direction as the Word of God always 
has. And it will give a freer, fuller life than the 
unlimited mind of any man, however creative, 
can of itself secure. Dr. Dale speaks of a sermon 
that closed his Exposition of the Epistle to the 
Galatians, a summary of the truth of the 
Epistle, as "quite as exciting as a fiery pamphlet 
on some question of modern party politics." 
The difficulties are partly removed if we have 
a generous conception of expository preaching. 

What is expository preaching? Dr. W. M. 
Taylor, in his "Ministry of the Word," seems to 
confine it to the continuous and consecutive 
treatment of a book of the Bible. "By exposi- 
tory preaching, I mean that method of pulpit 
discourse which consists in the consecutive in- 
terpretation and practical enforcement of a 
book of the sacred canon." 

Dr. Dale, of Birmingham, has practically the 
s ame idea of the expository sermon, when he 
speaks of his own expository sermons, "in 



286 Expository Preaching 

which I carefully explained and illustrated, 
clause by clause, verse by verse, a group of 
chapters, or a complete book of Holy Scrip- 
ture." This is too limited a view of the ex- 
pository sermon, both as to its matter and 
method. It need not be consecutive treatment 
of a book, and it is not compelled to proceed 
clause by clause, and verse by verse. Such 
definition needlessly restricts the freedom and 
variety of the sermon, and makes it technical 
and mechanical. 

It is enough to say that the expository sermon 
is marked by two features : (1) It takes for its 
text a connected passage ; more than a clause or 
verse ; a Psalm, a parable, an argument or por- 
tion of an argument, a scene or narrative. It 
may have no connection with other sermons; 
it may stand by itself ; but it takes a connected 
passage for its treatment. Then (2) it seeks 
to .give in a clear and forcible way the meaning 
of the passage, the truth and lessons rightly 
taught by it. It is a faithful answer to the 
question, — " What is the mind of the Spirit in 
this passage; and what is the truth here for 
present life?" It is so "to combine the past 
and the present, to make the past such a mirror 
of the present, that what is said of the one shall 
have a powerful influence in moving the other." 
This gives great freedom and adaptation in the 



Expository Preaching 287 

choice of a passage, and also in its method of use 
within the limits of the material given. 

What are the advantages of the expository 
sermon? It is more apt to bring preacher and 
hearer into direct and immediate contact with 
the mind of the Spirit. If this is the result, the 
exposition must be vital. It must be of such 
a nature that the living Word shall speak ; not 
the curious explanation of a dead parchment, but 
the message of the ever present Spirit. 

When we are trying diligently to make the 
Scripture live with the power of Him who first 
inspired its writers, we are more apt to bring 
the hearers into direct and immediate contact 
with His mind. We are seen to be striving, not 
after human fancies and theories, but after the 
Word of God. No preacher will attempt ex- 
pository preaching unless he has a profound 
sense of a divine message in the Bible. If its 
best words are only the refinements of human 
reason concerning spiritual things, he will not 
have the patience of the Biblical student. He 
will wish to range in what are to him freer and 
broader fields. And on the other hand, where a 
congregation delight in expository preaching, 
it implies an unusual respect for the Scriptures 
and interest in their truth. If we are faithful 
expositors, we shall have the authority of the 
Word in our sermons. 



288 Expository Preaching 

And amid all the conflict of opinions, the dim 
and misty strivings of the human heart, surely 
men are longing for just this, the authority of a 
Divine word. We must make men feel that we 
have the Word of God. Oratory is nothing, 
even genius is a wandering fire, without this im- 
pression and assurance that we are bringing 
God's thought to men. The pulpit is not the 
platform nor the stump. It is not above the 
same laws of thought and style, but it must 
depend upon a higher source for its power. 

Expository preaching will promote the Biblical 
knowledge of the preacher and the hearer. The 
preacher first : he feels that he is to be a student 
of the Bible first of all. The Biblical idea of the 
preacher is the learner. We know a few things 
now, by study and experience, the rudiments of 
the Gospel. It is not true that we are unfit to 
preach and ought to resign our commissions 
unless we are masters of all the points of doc- 
trine and of Bible knowledge. But we are to 
go on for ourselves, adding to our knowledge, 
mastering detail after detail, period after period, 
book after book — so that we may, like a wise 
householder, bring forth things new and old. 
But how shall we do this ? Is it feasible for the 
young man, with the complex life of to-day, the 
multiplying demands of pulpit and parish, to 
carry on lines of Biblical study, independent of 



Expository Preaching 289 

the pulpit, and with no immediate relation to 
it? The experience of most young preachers 
gives the answer. They need to so arrange 
their work that the study shall help the pulpit, 
and the plan of preaching shall demand and 
promote systematic Bible study. Courses of 
expository preaching will do this. And such 
method will make the preacher an expert in 
religion, and his message one of increasing 
weight and power. 

Then the people need the systematic teaching 
implied in the expository sermon. Are not the 
hazy views of truth due in large measure to the 
loose and desultory method of the pulpit? 
To-day the sermon may be from the sermon on 
the Mount; to-morrow from Genesis, and then 
from Isaiah or Revelation, without any historical 
or doctrinal connection. Lack of order and 
system is one of the gravest faults of the Amer- 
ican pulpit, the inevitable result of an un- 
scholarly ministry. Closely allied to this is 
the false habit of regarding single clauses and 
even words of Scripture by themselves, and so 
disregarding the general current of its history 
and argument. It is not a curiosity shop or a 
mere storehouse of texts, it is a divinely gov- 
erned history. God has spoken to the race 
through great redemptive facts, and with these 
facts the truths are inseparably connected. 



290 Expository Preaching 

"Now the true expository method is likely to 
lead people to read the Bible as they read other 
books, and to look not merely at separate 
thoughts and fragments of separate thoughts, 
at isolated facts and the most insignificant cir- 
cumstances connected with isolated facts; but 
at facts and thoughts in masses, and as they are 
grouped by the Scriptural writers themselves. " * 

Expository preaching promotes an intelligent, 
balanced view of Christian truth. Such preach- 
ing secures variety in the teaching of the pulpit 
and breadth of truth. A mere topical preacher 
will soon run dry. The inventiveness of no 
single mind is great enough to meet the variety 
of human needs. It is said that Dr. John Dick 
of Scotland, when a young man, went to a 
neighboring minister in despair. "What shall 
I do ? I have preached all I know to the people, 
and have nothing else to give them; I have 
gone through the catechism, and what have I 
more?" "The catechism?" his friend replied; 
"take the Bible, mon, it will take you a long 
time to exhaust that." 

Exposition keeps the great truths from being 
stereotyped, for they are presented with ever 
new relations in the Scripture. Take the doc- 
trine of regeneration in John hi. 3 and James i. 18. 
The new relation throws new light upon the cen- 
1 Dale, "Lectures on Preaching," p. 232. 



Expository Preaching 291 

tral truth. Here, the simple central truths of 
the Gospel are set in an infinite variety of forms, 
and we shall never exhaust the variety. The 
only way to escape from the weariness and profit- 
lessness of the repetition of a few evangelical 
doctrines is to be interpreters of the Scriptures, 
true to every fact, every teaching and lesson of 
their pages. 

In the course of systematic exposition, the 
minister will treat some subjects from which he 
would otherwise shrink. Details of duty and of 
sin may be pursued without danger of prejudice 
and needless offence. They will be received as 
not simply the preacher's word, but as imbedded 
in the very course of Scripture truth. 

"It will surprise one to see what wealth and 
variety of topics will come up for illustration in 
discussion, by means of expository preaching. 
A thousand subtle suggestions and a thousand 
minute points of human experience, not large 
enough for the elaborate discussion of the ser- 
mon, and yet, like the little screws of the watch, 
indispensable to the right action of the machinery 
of life, can be touched and turned to advantage 
in expository preaching. There are many topics 
which, from the excitement of the time and 
from the prejudice of the people, it would be 
difficult to discuss topically in the pulpit, yet, 
taken in the order in which they are found in 



292 Expository Preaching 

Holy Writ, they can be handled with profit and 
without danger. The Bible touches all sides of 
human life and experience, and Scriptural ex- 
perience gives endless opportunities of hitting 
folks who need hitting. The Squire can hardly 
stamp out of church for a 'Thus saith the 
Lord.'" 1 

In this method the preacher will acquire a 
great store of material which he can use for other 
purposes. He will never need to hunt for texts, 
foolishly wasting time and spirit, but texts will 
fairly press for treatment, more than he ca \ 
ever use, as his study continues. Great topics 
of religion will rise more and more, in the^r 
Scripture induction, gathering constant accre- 
tion from study and experience. And a multi- 
tude of glimpses and side lights, of shining words 
and apt phrases and illustrations, will come to 
his hand. 

" For many years, in my own ministry, I have 
never known a time when I had not in my mind 
a large number of subjects, each of which was 
eager to receive my first attention, but which I 
was compelled to detain, that it might wait its 
turn. And so the question has been, not what 
can I get to preach, but rather, which one of 
many topics has the most pressing claims and 
the most immediate interest ? Now, I trace the 

1 Beecher, " Yale Lectures," Vol. I, p. 225. 



Expository Preaching 293 

existence of this state of things to my constant 
habit of expository preaching, on at least one 
part of every Lord's day." ' 

The freedom and variety of the expository 
method may be seen in the study of the follow- 
ing plans : 

I. Isaiah xxxv. 3-10. 

Theme : The King's Highway. 

1. Its characteristics, a way of holiness. 

2. The objections to the way; and the 

answers. 
a. The way is a desert. 

But there are springs of water, oases 
in the desert ; and even the mirage 
shall become a pool. 
6. The path is obscure. 

No; it is the King's highway, so 
plain that a simple man, even a 
child, can easily keep it. 

c. It is a dangerous way. 
Nothing shall harm you therein. 
"No lion shall be there," etc. 

d. But the way is long, shall we ever 

reach the Fatherland ? 
"The ransomed of the Lord shall 
return," etc. 
Conclusion: Therefore strengthen the weak 
knees. Be strong, fear not. 

1 Taylor, "The Ministry of the Word/' p. 175. 



294 Expository Preaching 

In this plan the eighth verse is taken as the 
key of the passage and furnishes the theme. 
The plan is true to the historical fact, but the 
past is used as a mirror of the spiritual. So 
the whole is a present message, and the plan 
uses or discards elements of the passage that 
suit the present purpose, and likewise uses the 
utmost liberty of order. 

II. Matt. v. 1-12. 

Theme: The Christian Conception of Char- 
acter. 

1. It enthrones the passive virtues. 

2. It corrects the view that life is tested by 

ordinances and activities. 

3. It is not a natural growth ; the acquire- 

ment of supernatural virtue. 

4. An ideal to be realized. "Shall be." 
Instead of discussing the passage, verse by 

verse, an easy and natural thing to do, the plan 
finds the underlying principles that have ex- 
pression and illustration in the beatitudes, and 
discusses each in the light of the whole passage. 
Such a method gives singleness and suggestive- 
ness, and combines rhetorical effectiveness with 
exposition. 

III. Matt. xiii. 1-9. (Plan of Dr. C. H. Park- 

hurst.) 



Expository Preaching 295 

Theme : Responsibility of the Hearer. 
Introduction: The significance of the first 
parable, and the two principles im- 
plied by it, viz. : The Word of God 
implanted, not innate, and the oral 
method of making the truth known. 
Development: The four kinds of hearers, 
following the exact order of the 
parable, and Christ's interpretation. 
The individuality of the plan is in the sug- 
gestive introduction, that puts the parable in a 
new light, and in placing the finger on the last 
verse as the key to the whole. And the de- 
velopment is made unforgettable by the vivid 
illustrations and the powerful appeal to con- 
science. 

IV. Matt. viii. 5-13. (F. W. Robertson.) 

Theme: Faith of the Centurion. 
Introduction : Christ emphasized faith ; analy- 
sis of its nature and power. 
1. The faith commended. 

a. First evidence of its existence: ten- 

derness to his servants, caring for 
" our nation." 

b. Second evidence: His humility, 

"Lord, I am not worthy." Christ 
calls this faith. How faith and 
humility are the same. 



296 Expository Preaching 

c. Third evidence : His belief in a living 
will. " Speak the word only." The 
living will out of sight, the highest 
form of faith. 
2. The causes of the commendation. 

a. The centurion, a Gentile, unlikely to 

know revealed truth. 

b. A soldier with peculiar temptations. 
He made his difficulties means of 

religious life. 

Conclusion: The genuine wonder of Jesus, 
mark of genuine humanity. Our brother. 

The plan is significant for its suggestive inter- 
pretation of the scene, taking out and naming 
the distinctive parts, and making all the details 
contribute to these. The plan is weak in its 
conclusion, not the telling truth of it all, but 
simply a suggestion attached. 

V. AcTsiv. (W.M.Taylor.) 

Theme: Peter before the Council. 

1. The orderly narrative of the chapter. 
The two classes of antagonists; result, 

Peter and John in prison; brought 
before the Council; their bearing 
and spirit ; their release. 

2. Practical inferences. 

a. If we are really Christ's we must ex- 
pect to meet antagonism. 



Expository Preaching 297 

b. We shall remind the world of Christ. 

c. The one rule of our lives will be to 

hearken unto God. 

d. Our chosen fellowship will be with 

those who are Christ's. 

e. We shall betake ourselves in every 

trial to the throne of grace. 
Biographical sermons are often the truest 
expositions. There is something timeless in 
biography. The revelation of a life is a word 
for all times. God's Word has come through 
living men, and to make these men live again 
is a certain way of giving reality to their word. 
Dr. Taylor is noted among preachers for his 
study of Bible characters. His plans have a 
certain sameness that only his rich mind and 
fervent spirit can make interesting. He gives 
the narrative or scene with all the wealth of 
modern historical study, and then follows with 
a series of practical observations. The method 
sometimes leads to the separation of life and 
lesson, and the lack of unity and singleness of 
impression, which belong to life and the greatest 
speech. 

VI. John xvi. 12-15. (Alexander Maclaren.) 

Theme: The Guide into all Truth. 
Introduction: The promise of the Comforter, 
the last expansion here. 



298 Expository Preaching 

1. The avowed incompleteness of Christ's 

own teaching, v. 12. 
Reconciliation with xv. 15, as germ 
and flower. Why Christ's teaching 
incomplete? 12 (b). Revelation 
measured by the moral and spiritual 
capacity of man to receive. The 
same principle holds about us. 

2. The completeness of the truth into 

which the Spirit guides, v. 13. 

a. The personality, designation, office of 
the new teacher. 

6. He guides. " Into all truth." 

No promise of omniscience, the assur- 
ance of gradual acquaintance. 

c. "Not speak of Himself": relation of 

the Spirit as teacher to Jesus, and 
of Jesus to the Father. 

d. "Things to come." This promise 

applies in a unique fashion tc the 
original hearers. The inspiration 
and authority of the Apostles. 
Modified application to us. 

3. Our Lord's pointing out the unity of 

these two. v. 14, 15. "He shall 
glorify me." No man. 14 (a). 
All is Christ. 14 (b). No new 
revelation, the interpretation of the 
old. 



Expository Preaching 299 

4. Lessons. 

a. Seek the divine Spirit given to all. 

b. Use the book that He uses. 

c. Try the spirits. 

This plan is a good example of Alexander 
Maclaren's orderly and unified exposition. He 
gives the exact truth of the passage in the pro- 
portion and emphasis of the writer. Not a 
detail is omitted and yet they are so massed 
that they lift up the great teachings of the 
passage, and these together make the singleness 
of his message. He stands out among modern 
preachers for his accurate scholarship, spiritual- 
mindedness, and the creative imagination that 
sees the truth and makes all things minister to 
its expression. If young men would master 
the art of expository preaching, let them study 
the work of Alexander Maclaren. 

Suggestions as to Expository Method. 
1. Select a passage that has a central thought, 
or take out of the passage some impor- 
tant truth for your theme, and discuss it 
in the light of the entire passage. Study 
variety in the choice of passage, a par- 
able, a miracle, a narrative, a scene, a 
poem, a doctrine, a duty, a character, 
an inductive study of some great truth, 
a book in course; the expository ser- 



300 Expository Preaching 

mon need not suffer from sameness of 
choice. 

2. Secure a true rhetorical order of treatment. 

The passage will often be in the most 
natural and effective order, but if not, 
rearrange or select such as are best for 
your use. 

3. Remember that the chief business of ex- 

position is to so present truth that it 
shall make its strongest appeal to life. 

Therefore the explanation should be un- 
mistakable and positive. It should not 
leave the hearer in doubt. Where there 
are several views, one should be chosen 
that seems the most reasonable and 
practical. The details of exegesis should 
not cover up the central thought, but 
lift it up, illuminating and enforcing it. 
The sermon should not be a mass of 
chips, but a finished work ; not processes 
but results are demanded in the sermon. 
"This or that detail should not be pur- 
sued or elaborated, however important 
in itself, if it does not enforce and illu- 
minate the central idea." 

The weakness of some pulpit expositions 
is their closeness and compactness of 
thought, not simple enough and bold 
enough in outline for the popular mind ; 



Expository Preaching 301 

clear enough for the eye, but not for the 
ear; lacking in singleness of thought 
and in the expansion of the thought 
through varied repetition so as to make 
the message interesting and effective to 
many hearers. Make the exposition 
as short as you can, consistent with 
clearness and vividness, and then pass 
to the practical discussion and applica- 
tion of the truth, and make this full and 
effective. 

4. Use every power of illustration, argument, 

and appeal in the practical part. The 
expository sermon should not fall into 
the dry and didactic manner. Illustra- 
tion especially will be needed to make 
the instruction bright and persuasive. 
It must be far removed from mere com- 
mentary. The material must be abun- 
dant and choice, the best results of 
reading and culture. 

5. Study variety of treatment. The mode 

of discussion will depend upon the na- 
ture of the passage as truly as in the 
topical method. There was a marked 
change in the preaching of Dr. Dale. 
At first, his expositions were verse by 
verse. Afterward, he read the passage 
and commented on needed points, and 



302 Expository Preaching 

then preached from a single text. It 
was more rapid and effective, gave 
broad historic views, and escaped the 
evils of a microscopic criticism — the 
examining of Niagara, drop by drop. 
Variety may be specially used in modes 
of application. Three methods are 
always open to the preacher: (1) Ex- 
position and the lesson. (Guthrie, 
Chalmers, Maclaren, Taylor.) (2) Ap- 
plication after each part. (Spurge m, 
Parker.) (3) The appeal woven with 
the entire fabric of the sermon. It were 
well if the preacher were more often 
skilled to do the last, the highest form 
of teaching. Hawthorne's words may 
have proper reference to the sermon. 
"When romances really do teach any- 
thing, it is usually through a more 
subtle process than the ostensible one. 
The author has considered it hardly 
worth his while relentlessly to impale 
his story with its moral, as with an iron 
rod, or rather as by sticking a pin 
through a butterfly — thus at once 
depriving it of life, and causing it to 
stiffen in an ungainly and unnatural 
attitude. A high truth, indeed, fairly, 
finely, and skilfully wrought out, bright- 



Expository Preaching 303 

ening at every step, and crowning the 
final development of a work of fiction, 
may add an artistic glory, but is never 
any truer, and seldom any more evident, 
at the last page than at the first." * 
Begin with single experiments, as a miracle 
or parable, and repeat it until you form 
the habit and you know how to make 
such work interesting and effective. 
Do not give it up because it is easier to 
do something else, and your people 
prefer something that will demand less 
attention. Try the method in the 
prayer meeting, as a preparation for the 
pulpit . Such work would rescue the mid- 
week meeting from aimless monotony. 
The method persisted in will make you 
an instructive, Biblical preacher, and 
build up a thoughtful, spiritual church. 
It must be remembered that the micro- 
scopic study may always be a danger 
to the prophetic vision. But no 
preacher need be a mere expositor. 
Imagination and feeling must give light 
and heat to learning. "The preaching 
which is strong in its appeal to authority, 
wide in its grasp of truth, convincing 
in its appeal to reason, and earnest in 
1 "House of Seven Gables," Preface, p. 4. 



304 Expository Preaching 

its address to conscience and the heart, 
all of these at once, that preaching which 
comes nearest to the type of the apos- 
tolic epistles, is the most complete and 
so the most powerful approach of truth 
to the whole man, and so is the kind of 
preaching which, with due freedom 
granted to our idiosyncrasies, it is best 
for us all to seek and educate/ ' * 

1 Phillips Brooks, " Lectures on Preaching," p. 132. 



XV 

DOCTRINAL PREACHING 



OUTLINE 

Reasons for the Decline of Doctrinal Preaching. 

Reaction from extreme doctrinal preaching. 

The unfavorable atmosphere of modern life. 

Question as to the value of doctrinal preaching. 

The questions of duty foremost. 

The growth of Christian agnosticism. 

The difficulty of formulating and teaching doctrine. 

The limited sphere of doctrine. 
The need of Doctrinal Preaching. 

A wrong method and spirit of doctrinal preaching. 

Doctrine essential to Christian life. 

The great truths unchangeable in importance and attrac- 
tion. 
How should Doctrine be preached? 

Scriptural, not merely confessional. 

The Expositor the best teacher of doctrine. 

Doctrine in the light of its purpose. 

Not chiefly through logic. 

The great preachers have dwelt upon doctrine. 
Apologetic Sermons. 

The wrong and right use of apologetics. 

The Bible examples of true apologetics. 

The urgent need to-day. 

The sincere questioning spirit. 
How shall the Apologist in the pulpit do his work? 

By the understanding of the times. 

Elements of the new environment of faith. 

Apologetics to be preached only as needed. 

They must show the reasonableness of faith. 

They should be occasional, not systematic. 

References : 

Beecher. "Yale Lectures." 3d Series. 
Jefferson. "The Minister as a Prophet." Lect. 5. 
Forsythe. " Positive Preaching and the Modern 

Mind." 
Tucker. "The Making and the Unmaking of 

the Preacher." Lect. 5. 
Bruce. "Apologetics." 

Bishop Alexander. "Primary Convictions." 
P. Carnegie Simpson. "The Fact of Christ." 
306 



XV 

DOCTRINAL PREACHING 

The present tendency of many pulpits to 
ignore doctrine, to put life over against doc- 
trine, is a reaction from the extreme doctrinal 
preaching of the former generation, when ser- 
mons like those of Timothy Dwight and Na- 
thaniel Emmons formed a veritable "body of 
divinity." Moreover, our age is not a favor- 
able atmosphere for doctrinal preaching. The 
intensity of industrial and social life has weak- 
ened contemplation and fostered the sensa- 
tional spirit. Men ask for brightness, and com- 
fort, and inspiration from the pulpit, and not 
for the exact and hard thinking of doctrine. 
There is also a question whether the high doc- 
trinal preaching of former days had its proper 
effect upon present life, whether the emphasis 
upon other worldliness did not lead to a dis- 
regard of the practical problems of this world, 
and to a partial and nerveless morality. The 
central thought of Christ is life, and this must 
307 



308 Doctrinal Preaching 

be interpreted not in terms of the future merely, 
but of the present, a righteous life, personal and 
social. Has there not been the long teaching 
of dogma, man's speculations about truth, and 
the neglect of the plain ethics of Christ? No 
doubt the popular plea of life without dogma 
is often the excuse of unbelief, but it has within 
it an earnest seeking for life. 

Questions of duty are those that press for 
answer. For we have come into a new world of 
work and relation, that demands constant read- 
justment of life, and restatement of principle. 
The ethical idea is a progressive one. The old 
individualism will not answer. We live in an 
age of growing social consciousness. What are 
we to do with houses and wages? What is to 
be the relation of men in work and society? 
What has Christianity to do with the real life 
of the world? The social problem naturally 
turns the thought of men from dogma, intel- 
lectual conceptions of truth, to the practical 
issues that press so heavily upon all. 

Then we live in a new earth and under a new 
heaven. The days of our grandfathers seem 
nearer to the first century than to the twentieth. 
The marvels of the new science, the transforma- 
tions of the new inventions, suggest the partial 
nature of our former knowledge. If there have 
been such unfoldings of the natural world, may 



Doctrinal Preaching 309 

there not also be of the spiritual ? Can the in- 
finite mystery of Godliness be put so surely and 
confidently into the postulates of human reason ? 
Can we map out the Godward side of truth as 
clearly as we do our garden walks? With the 
agnosticism that denies the possibility of reve- 
lation, is the Christian agnosticism that comes 
from the humility that "we know in part." It 
is not willing to speak of some things that 
seemed certain to the fathers. 

The increased difficulty of formulating and 
teaching doctrine enters into the problem. The 
Biblical materials of doctrine have changed. 
No thoughtful man would think of stating Bib- 
lical doctrine to-day by the use of Cruden's Con- 
cordance. The progressive nature of revelation 
must be considered and each statement treated 
in the light of the author and the age. Has the 
preacher sufficient grasp of the materials of 
doctrine ? 

Philosophy has had no little to do with the 
conception and form of doctrine. Have we a 
clear and consistent philosophy wherewith to 
express the materials of Bible knowledge and 
Christian experience? Shall we express truth 
in the form of law or of life ? Shall we bring 
the Hebrew modes of thought into the scientific 
temper of to-day? Or shall we dress truth in 
present modes ? 



310 Doctrinal Preaching 

The doctrine of God — shall the emphasis 
be upon the transcendence of God and His un- 
likeness to man, or upon His immanence and 
the kinship of God and man? Or take the 
doctrine of the Atonement — Shall the truth 
bear the form of human sacrifices, or express 
the law of the inner life ? In such questions is 
seen the difficulty of doctrinal preaching. And 
in the face of the difficulty many earnest minds 
have been uncertain. 

And finally, the growing spiritual life of the 
Church has limited the sphere of doctrinal 
teaching. Christ's last prayer is being slowly 
realized in the growing unity of His disciples. 
The things that differ, born of the polemic 
spirit, that found their place in many of the 
creeds, are giving way to the things that make 
for peace, born of the spirit of love. There is a 
false tolerance of moral indifference, that in- 
cludes everything of a religious name, that does 
not discriminate between truth and error, but 
the true tolerance that "consists in the love of 
truth and the love of man, harmonized in 
the love of God" will dwell upon those simple 
and central truths of the Gospel that bind men 
in the fellowship of a common love and 
service. 

It must be frankly admitted that present 
tendencies are against doctrinal preaching. As 



Doctrinal Preaching 311 

far as these tendencies are for a practical reli- 
gion, we must feel that they are wholesome. 
But so far as practical religion is separated from 
true belief and devotional practice, so far the 
tendency is unwholesome. The lower streams 
cannot be kept full save by unbroken connection 
with the upper springs. 

The loss of doctrinal preaching has been at- 
tributed to the loss of spiritual life. " There is 
widespread spiritual desolation and widespread 
indifference to dogma," and the conclusion is 
dogmatically drawn that they are cause and 
effect. The life of our age is too complex, the 
spirit of worldliness is too subtle, to admit of 
this easy logic. The dislike of doctrinal preach- 
ing is often due to the wrong method and spirit, 
and not from indifference to the great truths 
thus expressed. "Men who are looking for a 
law of life and an inspiration of life are met by 
a theory of life." Christ gives life. To make 
Christ living and life-giving is the work of the 
preacher. "All that has come to me about 
Him from His word, all that has grown clear 
to me about His nature, or His methods, by 
my inward or outward experience, all that He 
has told me about Himself, becomes part of the 
message that I must tell to those men whom He 
has sent me to call home to Himself. I will 
do this in its fulness. And this is the preaching 



312 Doctrinal Preaching 

of doctrine, positive, distinct, characteristic 
Christian truth." 1 

The preaching of doctrine, then, is essential. 
Truth is the source of life. And doctrine is the 
effort to reach clear thought as to the person 
and word and work of Christ. The loss of 
clear, positive convictions as to Christ must in 
the end be the wreck of morals. 

Doctrine has to do with the strength of the 
Christian life. It is inseparable from firm con- 
viction and pure emotion and masterful will. 
Strong convictions come from clear views. 
Clear views mean that the facts and truths of 
Scripture have distinct form, and this is doc- 
trine. Pure emotions are born of clear percep- 
tions. This means truths in their proportion 
and relation, and this is only another name for 
doctrine. The will acts upon convictions and 
is moved by feeling. So the whole religious 
life depends upon Christian doctrine, properly 
understood. 

The Gospel, then, and the human mind both 
demand the teaching of Christian doctrine. It 
is a misreading of life to interpret the popular 
dislike of dogma as indifference to the great 
truths of God and the soul of man. No ques- 
tions are so perennial as those of religion. No 
person is so thoroughly alive, present in the life 
1 Brooks, "Yale Lectures," p. 128. 



Doctrinal Preaching 313 

of the world, as the person of Jesus Christ. 
" These high themes have not lost their charm. 
They are vitally related to our well-being. Man 
has great concern in every one of them. God, 
Christ, the Holy Spirit, character, duty, respon- 
sibility, the soul, immortality, destiny, are 
themes that are more closely related to our 
personal interests than taxes, wages, or tariff. 
These are the chief sources of our comfort. 
They supply our strongest incentives to right- 
eousness. Here are the bonds of our social fab- 
ric, the roots of our civilization. From them 
alone comes the hope of a redeemed earth, and 
a new era for the race." 

And what shall mark our preaching of doc- 
trine ? It should be scriptural, not merely con- 
fessional, and always interpreted in the Spirit of 
Christ. The facts abide. Truth is unchanged 
and unchanging, but the doctrine, the form of 
stating the truth, must change. It is so in the 
natural world, and it must be so in the spiritual 
world. The expositor will be the best teacher 
of doctrine. It will be Biblical more than dog- 
matic theology. Dr. Dale preached a theology 
coming from his study of John, and then these 
conceptions he tried to interpret through the 
Pauline forms. If doctrine is approached 
through Scripture interpretation rather than 
philosophic study, its teaching will have variety 



314 Doctrinal Preaching 

and adaptation and freedom from dogmatism. 
Truth is shown on its many sides, to fit differ- 
ent natures and conditions. The New Testa- 
ment writers do not seem to teach any single, 
consistent theory of the Atonement, but each 
man looks at the wondrous mystery from his 
own nature and training and necessities. In 
the Scriptures it is always doctrine through 
life, through personal experience. And so the 
truth is presented in its practical aspects. 

The true teacher of doctrine must understand 
the development of doctrine, the forces and steps 
through which truth has come to its present 
creedal form, or there will be misstatement or 
wrong emphasis upon the teaching of the Gospel. 

Men must distinguish between the wrappings 
of truth, that match the environment of the 
age, and the essential truth itself. The state- 
ment of God's sovereignty in the Westminster 
Confession was the voice of a monarchical age, 
before the rise of the democratic spirit and the 
worth of the common man, and the voice of an 
age lacking in humanity, when a hundred crimes 
were punishable with death. It is no disparage- 
ment to that noble confession to say that it 
was impossible for such an age properly to ex- 
press the Fatherhood of God. Every doctrine 
should be viewed and discussed in the light of 
its purpose, living truth, not mere speculation. 



Doctrinal Preaching 315 

A doctrine that cannot feed the soul and give 
more life is quite sure to be something other 
than the Word of Christ. 

Doctrine should be .taught with large charity 
for those whose speculative beliefs prevent 
them from assent to our position; but with 
firm and steady insistence upon duty and the su- 
premacy of conscience. The doctrinal preacher 
is in great danger from rationalism and dogma- 
tism. Christianity is reasonable, and must 
make its constant appeal to reason, but obedi- 
ence, not reason, is the organ of spiritual knowl- 
edge. Correct belief is not an unimportant 
matter. But the primary question is ethical 
and not theological, the attitude of the inner 
life towards the ideal presented by Christ. If 
the inmost desire turns towards Him, it is the 
path of moral ascent; and away from Him is 
the path of moral decline. Logic is not to take 
the highest place in doctrinal preaching. The 
truth must not contradict reason, but it must 
appeal to experience, and be clothed in the 
rhetorical form, warm and pulsating with feel- 
ing and imagination. The preacher who deals 
endlessly in logic feeds only a few natures, and 
cultivates only one faculty, and is rarely able 
to apprehend the fullest truth. For. the Gospel 
truth is the complement to the entire nature of 
man. 



316 Doctrinal Preaching 

There should be the systematic teaching of 
doctrine, so that from the inductive use of the 
Scriptures the people will know the great doc- 
trines of Christianity. And it is wise to use 
present interest in any truth, e.g. the Atonement, 
for full instruction. "The preachers that have 
always held and moved men have always 
preached doctrine. No exhortation to a good 
life that does not put behind it some truth as 
deep as eternity can seize and hold the con- 
science. Preach doctrine, preach all the doc- 
trine that you know, and learn forever more 
and more. But preach it always not that men 
may believe it, but that men may be saved by 
believing it. So it shall be alive and not dead. 
So men shall rejoice in it, not deny it; so they 
shall feed on it at your hands, as on the bread 
of life, solid and sweet, and claiming for itself 
the appetite of man which God made for it." * 

Apologetic Sermons. — There are those who 
say that Apologetics have no place in the pul- 
pit. Christianity is aggressive. Never put your- 
self on the defensive. All doubt is sin. The 
only cure is the Gospel. Preach that fearlessly 
whether men hear or forbear. If men feel in 
this way they can never have the true apologetic 
element in their sermons. But the feeling is 
based on a wrong conception of apologetics and 
1 Brooks, " Yale Lectures," p. 129. 



Doctrinal Preaching 317 

a wrong attitude towards men. If we take 
apologetics in its technical sense, as "the scien- 
tific representation of the grounds on which 
Christian theology in so far as it is a part of 
human knowledge rests and may be vindi- 
cated," we may deny it a place in the pulpit. 
Or if we take it in the loose popular sense, as 
an apology, meaning an excuse, something for 
which we are ashamed, it certainly has no place 
in the pulpit. Neither of these ideas is in the 
Greek word "Apologia," and its use by early 
Christian teachers. It means a defence of 
truth, upon whatever grounds that defence 
may be based. Who of us will say that the 
truth of the Gospel shall never be defended in 
the pulpit? 

We have many examples of apologetics in 
the Bible. Using the word in its proper sense, 
some of the most striking parts of the Bible 
are apologies. The book of Job is such. It 
deals with one of the primal questions that lies 
at the basis of religion. In view of human suf- 
fering, is God good ? And the value of the book 
of Job is that it treats the elemental truths of 
religion with perfect fairness; it does not hide 
any fact. It does not try to make facts har- 
monize with theory, but first of all, asks, what 
is true? Such a book has great value to-day 
for the pulpit, for men are asking the first ques- 



318 Doctrinal Preaching 

tions all about us with passionate earnestness. 
And such a book has the value of being " time- 
less and passionless/' the facts and motives and 
truths laid bare, stripped of the feeling and 
prejudice of present persons and parties. Christ 
sometimes acts the part of an apologist. It is 
true that He speaks with authority. "I say 
unto you." There is a positive tone. He 
stands as the master of truth and life. And yet 
in view of the dulness of men, and their slow- 
ness of heart, He is willing to reason, remove 
the errors, defend His course and views. His 
teaching of the value of life, the humblest and 
the most sinful, is brought out as a defence 
against the criticism of Pharisaic exclusiveness. 
The word Apologist has been truthfully applied 
to the Apostle Paul. Standing on the castle 
stairs at Jerusalem, he says, " Brethren and 
fathers, hear ye my defence, which I now 
make unto you." (Acts xxii. 1.) Twice in 
writing to the Philippians he puts himself in 
the same attitude. He tells them that in his 
bonds and in his defence and confirmation of 
the Gospel they are partakers of his grace. 
(Phil. i. 7.) And "lam set for the defence of 
the Gospel." (vs. 17). The whole Epistle to 
the Hebrews is in this sense an Apology, try- 
ing to remove difficulties and misconceptions 
from the minds of the Jews, and revealing 



Doctrinal Preaching 319 

Jesus as the hope of Israel, the " Gospel for a 
time of transition/' as Bishop Westcott so 
finely interprets it. 

Not only have we good Scripture warrant 
for apologetics, but there is urgent need for 
their wise use. We cannot be true to all our 
hearers without using this element. The major- 
ity of the congregation may have few difficulties ; 
but there is little provincialism and isolation 
to-day, and there is more religious unrest than 
we may think from the surface. There are 
thoughtful unbelievers, and young men and 
women in the critical state of transition from 
a traditional to a personal faith. The minister 
who does not think of these minds, and sympa- 
thize with them, and try to lead them into a 
reasonable faith, will lose his hold upon the life 
of the community. Many a church is leading a 
feeble life, giving a flickering light, because of 
the constrained and mechanical way that the 
truth is spoken. We may preach strongly 
upon justification by faith, and give the Scrip- 
ture teachings of the Atonement, and this 
teaching will help those prepared for it ; but to 
others it will only be words thrown into the 
wind, to men who are still stumbling over the 
alphabet of religion. Shall we have no word for 
these troubled and anxious minds ? 

How shall we perform this duty of Apologist 



320 Doctrinal Preaching 

in the pulpit ? It may be answered, first of all, 
we must have an understanding of the times. 
New elements have come into the problem, and 
these we must understand, or we shall be setting 
up men of straw. A true apologetic is to ad- 
just faith to its intellectual and social environ- 
ment, to help men hold faith in new realms of 
truth, to hold fast to that which cannot be 
shaken. Think of the new environment into 
which the Church has come; and in which we 
must so present Christ that He will be the 
power and wisdom of God. 

1. A new way of looking at the universe 
through Evolution. 

2. A new way of looking at the Bible, through 
the science of Biblical criticism. 

3. A new view of the religious history of 
mankind, through the modern science of com- 
parative religion. 

We should preach apologetics only as we are 
sure of the need. Single cases may often best 
be met in private conversation and by sugges- 
tions as to reading. It might be a mistake to 
disturb the minds of an audience with diffi- 
culties that have never come to them, for the 
sake of meeting the need of two or three per- 
sons whom we can reach in a far more personal 
way than from the pulpit. We cannot decide 
this matter from our own reading and intellec- 



Doctrinal Preaching 321 

tual interest, but from the careful study of the 
parish. When we feel the necessity of apologet- 
ics in the pulpit, two things should govern 
our method. They should not be preached in a 
dry and mechanical way, but with a sym- 
pathetic spirit, showing the reasonableness of 
faith. Then they should be occasional, rather 
than systematic. Let no man take a careless or 
contemptuous attitude towards doubters or 
those whom he thinks to be unsound. There are 
two kinds of doubters : those whose life is low, 
and those who are exceptionally truthful and 
earnest. The Arthur Hallam type is not un- 
common in this critical age. It is a gross mis- 
take to class all unbelievers alike; more than 
this, it is an unpardonable sin. Some of the 
finest souls in the community may have serious 
intellectual difficulties. They doubt because 
they are sensitive, morbidly so perhaps, because 
they wish to know all sides of truth; because 
they would not make their judgment blind. 
Such lives are worth winning. Once con- 
vinced of truth, they are loyal to it, and become 
the strength of the Church. God pity us, if by 
our harsh treatment we make it impossible for 
any of these little ones to believe. Let us get 
the Spirit of Christ in His dealing with Thomas. 
When the minds of the people are aroused by new 
discussion of Biblical subjects, if we touch the 



322 Doctrinal Preaching 

questions at all in the pulpit, we should do so 
accurately, without exaggeration, without special 
pleading, and with the spirit of fairness and 
charity. Never make the awful mistake of rest- 
ing faith on any false or artificial condition. If 
you do so, you will make more atheists than 
converts. We must not be afraid of the fullest 
examination and freest discussion. Oh, for a 
little of Milton's faith, "Who ever knew truth 
put to the worse in a free and open encounter ?" 

Take the matter of Biblical criticism. Will it 
be any help to faith for a minister to say, "The 
Devil was the first higher critic"? "Revela- 
tion will stand after criticism has done its ut- 
most; and to propagate this conviction and to 
deliver the Church from unreasoning panic is 
one of the urgent tasks of the present day 
apologetic. " — Bruce, "Apologetics." 

While we must make this allowance to apolo- 
getics, their use in the pulpit is to be occasional, 
and not systematic. It is a mistake to make the 
impression that truth is always on the defensive. 
The stock story of Bishop Bloomfield of London 
illustrates the danger of the tendency. "After 
all, my lord, I do believe there be a God." 
said a verger; "I have heard you faithfully for 
five and twenty years, and yet I am a believer 
still!" 

The general tone of the pulpit should be 



Doctrinal Preaching 323 

positive. And the preaching of the truth will 
be often the best answer to error. The entrance 
of the light will drive out the darkness. Canon 
Liddon of St. Paul's was a noble apologist, as 
setting forth the positive truth, as the antidote 
to the current error. Take the false theories in 
the air that undermine the sense of responsibility, 
and train the soul to ignore and then deny God. 
They underlie the social and political movements 
of thought. How shall we meet these theories? 
The best way is to teach most positively the moral 
and religious truths that are imperilled. We are 
to present the living realities of the Gospel; 
the evidence of personal experience; the power 
of an aggressive Christianity. One of the best 
series of apologetic sermons was a course on 
modern missions, by Dr. Tucker, now President 
of Dartmouth College. The Life of Faith, the 
Conquest of the Gospel, are most convincing 
apologetics. The true apologetic must be per- 
meated with the evangelistic spirit, and the 
ultimate object to make men conscious of sin, 
and lead them to repentance and faith. 



XVI 

ETHICAL SERMONS 



OUTLINE 

The relation of the Gospel and Ethics. 

The New Testament emphasis on the ethical life. 

The evil of the separation of the Gospel and ethics in pulpit 
teaching. 

The age demands the revival of ethical preaching. 
What shall be the preaching of Ethics? 

Frequent and systematic. 

Christian ethics. 

Biographical sermons often the best way; truth in life. 
The Ethics of Christ must be interpreted in the light of present 
conditions. 

There must be (1) a growing ethical ideal; (2) a growing 
ethical passion. 
Suggested Methods of Ethical Teaching. 

Midweek topics. 

Studies and discussions in men's clubs. 

Pulpit teaching. 
The Spirit of Ethical Teaching. 

Free from partisanship. 

Accurate and temperate speech. 

Spiritual values exalted. 

The education of the conscience. 

The effort to increase good will among men. 

The conviction that God's will can be found and obeyed. 

References : 

Brown. "Social Message of the Modern Pulpit." 
George Adam Smith. "Modern Criticism and 
the Preaching of the Old Testa- 
ment." Lect. 7. 
Ambrose Sheppard. "The Social Teachings of 

Christianity." 
Beecher. "Yale Lectures." 3d Series. Lect. 

7-11. 
McAfee. "The Mosaic Law in Modern Life." 
Bishop Westcott. "The Incarnation and Com- 
mon Life." 
Wright. "The Sermon on the Mount." 
Peabody. "Jesus Christ and the Christian 
Character." 



XVI 

ETHICAL SERMONS 

The Gospel is a redemption, and not an 
ethic. Its power is in the new creation and the 
divine impulse. When the spiritual side of the 
message is lost, and the pulpit becomes a chair 
of moral philosophy, it has lost its peculiar 
power. 

Such was the eighteenth century pulpit in Eng- 
land. There was a lifeless formalism in religion 
and little more than a cold Deism in the pulpit. 
Blackstone, the great law commentator, went 
from pulpit to pulpit in London and heard no 
more Gospel than he could find in the essays of 
Cicero. The moral life of the nation was weak- 
ened with the loss of a redemptive Gospel. 
Even Chesterfield could feel its moral weak- 
ness. " We are no longer a nation," he exclaims. 
And it was the preaching of the Gospel of Re- 
demption under the Wesleys, the grace of God 
able to save from the uttermost to the utter- 
most, that purified the religious life of the 
nation and awakened the moral sense. 

The purpose of redemption is a right life, a 

327 



328 Ethical Sermons 

godly and righteous life, right with God and 
right with men, a life of spiritual graces, fitting 
the children of God, a life of the practical fruits 
of righteousness, making the earth an Eden. 
And a right life is the rational outcome of a re- 
deemed life. The Gospel is profitable for the 
life that now is. Salvation cannot find its con- 
tent in a saved soul, nor in a heaven above. 
A man alone is no man. The Christian life is 
wrought out through all the relations and duties 
of human society. Christ's gift of eternal life 
is not a matter of time and place, but the 
qualities of character that are deathless as the 
will of God. We are to-day in our Father's 
house. Now we are to lead the life of sons. The 
place where we stand has as much of God as 
the farthest point of light. The motives of the 
Gospel are misread and misused that fail to 
sweeten and purify the issues of life. The New 
Testament places emphasis upon the ethical 
life. Christ's secret of a happy life is a right 
life. His portrait of a true man fills out the 
best human ideal with the heavenly light. The 
beatitudes are the enduring qualities of earthly 
blessedness. His abundant life is to be the 
"salt of the earth," both inspiring and preserv- 
ing the virtues of man and society; the "light 
of the world," making clear and giving life to the 
truths and duties of man. 



Ethical Sermons 329 

The apostolic word dwells with plain and 
homely iteration upon the present duties of 
life; the duties of husbands and wives, parents 
and children, masters and servants, friends and 
neighbors and citizens. Every typical sphere of 
life is touched, and principles laid down which 
are the germs of all social duty and progress. 
There is no excuse and little tolerance for the 
visionary and unreal. The Gospel is to be the 
dynamic of life, or it is no Gospel. It follows 
life to the least fraction of a gift and to the 
detail of the commonest duty. All doctrine is 
for life. Every Epistle has its practical con- 
clusion. Every heaven-born truth has its lowly 
home on the earth. 

It has been rightly said that there is as much 
ethics in the New Testament as theology. They 
are never separated, never treated as distinct. 
Religion is to be practical, and ethics to be spirit- 
ual. The mind of Christ was to go about doing 
good. The union of doctrine and life, of theol- 
ogy and ethics, has not always been seen in the 
work of the pulpit or the life of the Church. 
The high doctrines of grace have sometimes been 
proclaimed by the pulpit, over against morality, 
as though they were contradictions, and the 
moral law and the Sermon on the Mount treated 
as though lacking in spirituality. 

On the other hand the redemptive truths have 



330 Ethical Sermons 

been minimized, and the whole duty and privilege 
of man found in the Sermon on the Mount, as 
though Christ had never offered the prayer in 
the seventeenth chapter of John, or promised 
the guidance of the Spirit into further truth. 
In the early Church there were those idly gazing 
up into heaven, neglectful of the duty at their 
feet; and those so intent on ministry, that, 
Martha-like, they forgot to choose the good 
part of feeding the soul. In every age, men 
have said, with Peter and John on the Mount 
of Transfiguration, "Let us build three Tab- 
ernacles." And the men in the valley, 
apart from their Master, have been help- 
less and faithless in the presence of human 
need, and cried, "Why could not we cast it 
out?" 

The present age demands a revival of moral 
preaching. There has been a wide loosening of 
the old bonds of restraint and attachment. 
Coming face to face with the conceptions of many 
peoples, there has been the wavering of the old 
standards of conduct. Unexampled oppor- 
tunities of gain and pleasure have swept men 
away from the simple self-denying morality 
of the Gospel into indifference and self-indul- 
gence. The marriage bond is less sacred. 
Business is governed by a merciless competition. 
Politics is regarded as the game of parties, and 



Ethical Sermons 331 

not the sphere for the noblest service to society. 
The personal morality of the Church differs not 
so much from the morality of the world. And 
the Christian law is not the governing factor 
in business and the State. Christian men have 
not hesitated to corner the market, and press 
the weak to the wall by combination, and grasp 
public facilities in the interest of private gain, 
and govern national policies by the commercial 
greed of a class. Is not a fearless voice needed 
to search the conscience, apply the ethics of the 
Gospel, and call the age to a higher standard of 
values and of conduct? 

And what shall the preaching of ethics be? 
It is certain that it must be frequent and 
systematic, not occasional and incidental. We 
cannot take it for granted that faith will be ex- 
pressed in appropriate works. Faith is a germ 
that must grow by exercise and be disciplined 
into strength and beauty. Men must be 
taught Christian duties, and that the most 
correct belief and the most fervent feeling will 
not avail, without a life that tries to do the will 
of Christ. "Not every one that saith unto me 
Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of 
heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father 
that is in heaven/ ' 

It must be Christian ethics that are preached. 
And to be Christian ethics they must not only 



332 Ethical Sermons 

have the standard of the life that Christ gives, 
but ever connected in their motive and power 
with the Spirit of Christ. Every truth must 
be related to life, its natural and necessary con- 
duct clearly drawn, and earnestly enforced. And 
then the common duties that belong to the re- 
lations of men in practical life must be taught 
with line upon line, and precept upon precept, 
with personal and effective illustration and 
appeal to the higher elements of life. Dr. T. T. 
Munger's sermons, "On the Threshold, " thus 
teach young men and young women the Chris- 
tian conception of character. Dr. McAfee's 
"The Old Law for the New World" shows the 
perennial power and fitness of the moral law to 
the life of men. And Dr. Wright's exposition 
of the Sermon on the Mount, "The Ideals of the 
Mount for the Life of Men on the Plain," shows 
that Christ holds up no impossible ideals, but 
the natural and necessary traits of a new man 
and a redeemed society. These are examples of 
sermons on personal and social morality spoken 
with the measure and accent of the Gospel. 

Biography makes the best interpretation of 
life, and gives the best lessons of life. " We shall 
teach more and more by biography," said Mrs. 
Humphrey Ward one day to the late Professor 
Jowett of Oxford; "first by the life of Jesus, 
the noblest of all biography, and then by the 



Ethical Sermons 333 

lives of other good men, sages, and heroes, and 
prophets." And the biographical sermon is 
often the best way of teaching Christian ethics. 
The world had not known sin save by Christ's 
holy life, and vicarious death, that condemned 
sin in the flesh. And men come to true self- 
knowledge, to the judgment upon evil and ap- 
proval of good, through the portrayal of life. 
The subtle and complex nature of temptation, 
the growth of moral forces and tendencies, are 
traced in the revelation of a life. And Bible 
characters hold this mirror up to nature, not 
only from their truthfulness to nature, but be- 
cause they are so removed from the present as 
to be " timeless and passionless/' teaching truth 
free from the mists of present motives and con- 
troversies. 

No man who reads Robertson's etchlike 
portrait of Balaam can ever forget the per- 
version of noble gifts by avarice, and the start- 
ling glimpse of a heart that " would not play 
false, and yet would wrongly win." "There are 
men who would not lie, and yet who would 
bribe a poor man to support a cause which he 
believes in his soul to be false. There are men 
who would resent at the sword's point the charge 
of dishonor, who would yet, for selfish gratifica- 
tion, entice the weak into sin, and damn body 
and soul in hell. There are men who would be 



334 Ethical Sermons 

shocked at being called traitors, who in time of 
war will yet make a fortune by selling arms to 
their country's foes. There are men, respectable 
and respected, who give liberally and support 
religious societies, and go to church, and would 
not take God's name in vain, who have made 
wealth in some trade of opium or spirits, out of 
the wreck of innumerable human lives. Balaam 
is one of the accursed spirits now, but he did no 
more than these are doing." * And Bishop 
Phillips Brooks, in that most realistic picture 
of King Saul, the wreck of a noble life by the 
spirit of selfishness and wilfulness, gives us the 
principle of all truly ethical preaching, in keep- 
ing life in the presence of God, in bringing every 
motive and step to the bar of the divine will. 
The standard of life and the very conception of 
God depends upon the willingness to do the will 
of God. "Through the great open world moves 
God, like a strong wind or spirit, finding out all 
the public and the secret places of the life of 
man. In the breath of that Spirit we are all 
journeying; no one can escape for a moment. 
But while your brother at your side is full of the 
sense of God's love, to you God seems the hin- 
drance of your life; His righteousness defeats 
your plans, His purity rebukes your lust, His 
nature and being smite you in the face, like a 
1 "Sermons," p. 661. 



Ethical Sermons 335 

blast that blows bitter and cold, from a far-off 
judgment day. Does God hate you and love 
your brother ? No, He loves you both, but you 
with your disobedience are setting yourself 
against His love. You must turn around. You 
must be converted. And then, when your will 
is by obedience confederate with the will of God, 
every breath of His presence shall be your joy 
and salvation." * 

It must be said further that ethical preaching, 
to be a living message of God, must interpret 
the ethics of Christ in the light of present con- 
ditions. There must be : (1) a growing ethical 
ideal; and (2) a growing ethical passion. 

First, a growing ethical ideal. It is not 
enough to maintain an institutional Christianity. 
Christianity must become incorporated in the 
life of each age. It is not enough to teach 
certain rules of personal conduct ; the principles 
of life must be unfolded to apply to new con- 
ditions, finding their emphasis in the life of the 
age. In an age of individualism, when the chief 
thought was individual right and duty and lib- 
erty, the emphasis was on the truths of individual 
character, of personal morality. The ethical 
man according to Christianity was the man of 
purity, integrity, sincerity, and kindness. In 
a social age like ours, with a growing sense of 
1 "Sermons," Vol. IV, p. 313. 



336 Ethical Sermons 

humanity, the subtle and vital relation of one 
life to another, the solidarity of human life, the 
ethical conception is not satisfied with personal 
moralities, but with the right relation of men 
in industry, society, and the State. Temper- 
ance is one thing to our fathers, and another 
thing to us, with the scientific knowledge of the 
effects of alcohol, and the moral strain of our 
complex and strenuous life. Justice is one 
thing between free industrial equals; it may be 
another thing towards masses of men bound and 
banded together by common necessities and 
hopes. Our law often fails to express the new 
social and industrial relation of men. The 
right to work in one's own house seems a sacred 
right, and it has been decreed a right by the 
highest courts of the State. And yet to such 
decree "is directly due the continuance and 
growth of tenement manufacture, and of the 
sweating system in the United States and its 
present prevalence in New York, with its terrible 
consequences of overcrowding, child labor in the 
homes, and the diseases of congested and pinched 
populations." 

Well says the author of "Moral Overstrain/ ' 
concerning the failure of the law to recognize 
the new social relations of men: "The law 
embodies an outworn philosophy, the old laissez- 
faire theory of extreme individualism. — If the 



Ethical Sermons 337 

servant was dissatisfied with the conditions of 
his employment; if the dangers created, not 
merely by the necessities of the work, but by the 
master's indifference to the safety of his men, 
were in the eyes of the latter too great to be 
endured with prudence, then, being under this 
theory of a 'free agent' to go or stay, if he chose 
to stay, he must take the possible consequences 
of personal injury or death. This freedom is 
to him, not liberty, but injustice." x He is 
free to accept unjust conditions or starve. The 
conscience of man must be awakened and trained 
to a finer sense of its social relations and to the 
obligation that comes from it. The conscience 
must be taught and trained to meet the new 
issues of life, until conscience shall be the king 
of the entire sphere of modern life. 

It is evident that conscience has not kept pace 
with the development of industry and society. 
The Rev. Dr. Charles D. Williams, the Episcopal 
Bishop of Michigan, in an address on the " Final 
Test of Christianity," describes the too common 
examples of " commercial and political iniquity 
and civic unrighteousness," and then answers 
the question, Who are the men who do these 
things? "They are often gentlemen who are 
scrupulously correct in their personal behavior. 
As to the minor morals, they are temperate, 
1 Alger, "Moral Overstrain," p. 173. 



338 Ethical Sermons 

sober, and chaste. They are good husbands, 
kind fathers ; their home life is above reproach. 
They are often kind and considerate neighbors. 
They pay their debts, and fulfil their personal 
obligations to their friends. They scorn a lie 
where no business interest is at stake. They 
are interested actively in all civic improve- 
ments of a material sort. They give munificently 
to all movements for human betterment that 
do not interfere with their commercial schemes. 
They found hospitals, schools, and social settle- 
ments; they build libraries and universities. 
They are even orthodox, pious, and devoted in 
their religious life. They go to church regularly, 
teach in the Sunday-school, lead in prayer 
meeting, support the pastor (so long as he 
preaches smooth things), and give generously to 
missions. Now, why is this so? What is the 
secret of this strange ethical inconsistency, this 
moral contradiction? It seems to me to lie 
in a lack of moral coordination, a divided and 
disintegrated conscience. These men have, at- 
tained and fulfilled their ideals of morality in 
their personal conduct and relationship, and their 
technically religious life. In these regions they 
exercise and exhaust their conscience. But in 
their commercial relations and business life 
they have no standards whatever. Here they 
are morally color-blind. They see no distinc- 



Ethical Sermons 339 

tions of right and wrong. They are for the most 
part utterly unconscious of the flagrant iniquity 
of their doings. For here in this region of com- 
mercial life the writs of Christ do not run. Even 
common conscience and the moral law have 
no jurisdiction. 'The accepted rules of the 
game' are a sufficient code of ethics. There is a 
hopeless cleavage, a bridgeless gulf, through the 
midst of their lives. They have fulfilled all the 
reasonable requirements of righteousness here 
in their personal conduct and religious piety. 
They are therefore free to do as they like in this 
other and outer region of their existence. They 
need to pray the prayer of the Psalmist, 'Unite 
my heart to fear Thy name.'" 1 

It is true that Christian men have never met 
such temptations to worldliness as in this western 
hemisphere. 

"The homely nurse doth all she can, 
To make her foster-child, her inmate man, 
Forget the glories he hath known, 
And that imperial palace, whence he came." 

Never were there such opportunities for personal 
gain and power. Never have the horizons and 
relations of men shifted and widened so rapidly. 
And if Christian men often stand with this 
"disintegrated conscience/' making Christ the 
1 McClure'8 Magazine, December, 1905. 



340 Ethical Sermons 

" Lord of the hills but not of the valleys," is it 
not because the pulpit has somewhat lacked the 
prophet's vision and the prophet's voice? The 
prophets were interpreters of their age. They 
were educators of the personal and social con- 
science. And the pulpit has this perpetual 
function, this divine privilege and duty, to in- 
terpret the growing life of man and make Christ 
its master. 

Is it true (the claims of an earnest preacher) 
that " applied Christianity has been our theme" ? 
Is it true that " never before have so many 
sermons been preached on the ethical truths of 
Christianity, and never before has life been so 
unchristian"? Would it not be truer to say, 
that the pulpit as a whole has not caught the 
social message, and has failed to make the 
"new occasions teach new duties"? The ideal 
and the power to reach it are inseparable. A 
truer ethical ideal would give birth to a new 
ethical passion. That such a singleness of pur- 
pose is needed in the Church, born of a nobler 
conception of social relations, is the conviction 
of the most earnest students of religious life. 
Wherever men have caught the vision their 
hearts have been stirred. It has made religion 
a practical reality, and faith a transforming 
and impelling power. From the narrowness of 
ecclesiastical divisions and the stifling air of its 



Ethical Sermons 341 

contests, men have caught glimpses of the 
splendor of the Kingdom and their hearts have 
beat fast in the freer air of its promise. Even 
beyond the Church, thousands of men have 
breathed the life-giving spirit. A hundred 
years ago, the choicest of our youth gave them- 
selves with a heart of fire to the evangelization 
of great heathen peoples. And the only enthu- 
siasm to-day comparable with that of these early 
pioneers of foreign missions, is the passion to 
minister with which hundreds of the choicest 
young men and women lose themselves in the 
sin and want and misery of great so-called 
Christian cities. The highest mark and hope of 
our day is the nobler manhood slowly coming 
from the social conscience. There is a truer 
civic conscience, when men like the late Col. 
Waring will forget business and social prefer- 
ment and devote their energies to the cleaning of 
a great city, making it a fit place to bring up the 
children in, in some faint sense a city of God. 
There is a finer Christian pity, when women like 
Miss Jane Addams do not consider culture, and 
wealth, and social position matters to be 
grasped after for themselves, but give their lives, 
in true Messianic entrance into the heart of 
sodden and hopeless masses of pinched and 
degraded poverty. 
Wealth is for use, culture is for ministry, 



342 Ethical Sermons 

strength is to lift up the weak. A score of 
educated youth to-day are trying to fulfil the 
law of Christ by bearing the burdens of others, 
where one thought of these social duties a genera- 
tion ago. It is the moral passion born of a fuller 
moral ideal. Such ethical preaching would have 
vital relation to the spiritual progress of the 
Kingdom. " Evangelism/ ' says Dr. Rauschen- 
busch, "is only the cutting edge of the Church, 
and it is driven by the weight back of it. The 
evangelizing power of the Church depends on its 
moral prestige and spiritual authority. To be 
effective, evangelism must hold up a moral 
standard so high above the actual lives of men 
that it will smite them with conviction of sin." * 
A true Christian righteousness would give the 
Church its needed moral prestige and the pulpit 
its spiritual authority. When men see that the 
Gospel tends to right existing wrongs, to com- 
mand the public conscience, to lay the indus- 
trial world under the law of love to one's neighbor, 
to fit men for earth as well as for heaven, the 
time of our salvation, indeed, draweth nigh. 
And a new moral passion born of this larger 
moral conception would bridge gulfs between 
classes that now seem impassable, bring men now 
indifferent to the Church, or alienated from it, 
under the power of a personal love, and open 
1 " The New Evangelism." 



Ethical Sermons 343 

a thousand doors for the entrance of Christ into 
modern life. Faith spreads by the loving touch 
of a vitalized person. To the ethical ideal 
through the social consciousness are we to look 
for the moral enthusiasm, the singleness of 
devotion, that shall bring a new era of spiritual 
life to the Church, and so of wider conquest for 
the Kingdom of Christ. 

"The pulpit for to-day must be competent to 
give instruction in the moral laws which govern 
social and industrial life — the organized life 
of humanity. The age requires this instruction ; 
the people desire it; the ministers should give 
it. If the minister will go to his Book for this 
purpose, he will find it quite as rich in sociological 
as in theological instruction; quite as fertile in 
its suggestions respecting the duty of man to 
man, as in its suggestions respecting the nature 
and government of God." 1 

Some Suggested Methods of Ethical Teaching. 
— Some practical topic of social ethics might 
well be discussed at stated intervals in the mid- 
week meeting. Questions of the family, edu- 
cation, amusements, temperance, labor, civic 
reform, the immigrant, the State, should be 
carefully considered in the light of the Gospel, 
and have the earnest thought and prayer of 
Christian men. 

1 Lyman Abbott, "The Christian Ministry," p. 164. 



344 Ethical Sermons 

The growth of men's clubs in the churches 
offers a special opportunity for ethical study and 
teaching. They must have a stronger reason 
for being than the increase of an evening service 
or the support of a local cause. There must be 
a growing conception of the Kingdom of God, 
or enthusiasm will be short-lived. Under good 
leadership men will eagerly follow such studies 
as Peabody's " Jesus Christ and the Social Prob- 
lem/' Brooks' "Social Unrest/' and Gladden's 
"Tools and the Man." Occasional addresses 
can be secured from special workers and teachers. 
And such teaching will be felt at last in a stronger 
and more ethical faith. The preacher is to in- 
terpret the divine meaning of life, to make men 
conscious that God is on the field, when to the 
common eye He is most invisible. And to re- 
veal the spiritual significance of ethical and 
social movements that aim at human better- 
ment, however crude and imperfect the efforts, 
is to strengthen faith in the ever present Spirit 
of God, and to train men in the open vision and 
large sympathies that make them co-workers 
with the divine plan. 

The ethical teaching of the pulpit may be 
largely by exposition. The great principles 
of the Moral Law and the Sermon on the Mount 
should be unfolded with all their present re- 
lations and sanctions. The practical precepts 



Ethical Sermons 345 

of the Epistles will show the height and depth 
of the Gospel law, a prophetic book like Amos 
will lay bare the social lies of men and the living 
and eternal truths of justice and mercy; and 
the preacher who lives in his age and under- 
stands the meaning of its forces will always be a 
teacher of ethics, and by frequent use of illus- 
tration and application will give the social 
emphasis to his message. 

The Spirit of Ethical Teaching. — The truth 
should be spoken in love, with supreme re- 
gard for man, not for theory. Men are often 
in the stress of circumstances ; they seem a part 
of a great system ; they cannot do as they like. 
No man is guiltless. We are all involved in 
the sin of society; the blood of human lives 
is upon many things we eat and wear. So it 
becomes the preacher of ethics to look well to 
himself and consider the spirit of his teaching. 

The questions of ethics should never be 
approached in the partisan spirit. Men, equally 
sincere, may differ radically about the applica- 
tion of truth, the method of reform ; and if the 
preacher cannot rise above the din and dust of 
parties, he had better be silent. His work is 
that of a prophet, to reveal and insist upon a 
higher righteousness. 

The preacher of ethics is to keep the calmness 
of mind that sees truly, and the self-control 



346 Ethical Sermons 

that can condemn evil without railing at every 
evil-doer; the sympathy that puts himself in 
the place of the other man, and the faith that 
believes in the power of the simple statement 
of truth. Exaggeration is a weakness of the 
American pulpit. It is often the excess of 
earnestness that overreaches the mark, the sign 
of an ill-balanced nature, an intemperate zeal 
that alienates the very lives it ought to win, 
and inflames antagonism it ought to allay. 
Accurate and temperate speech, always the 
condition of spiritual leadership, is especially 
needful for the teaching of Christian ethics. 

The preacher is ever to exalt spiritual values 
above the material, in public teaching, daily 
speech, and social relation to recognize spiritual 
worth and honor it, free from the artificial dis- 
tinctions of work and position. The spiritual 
motives that bind all men to God and to each 
other are to be his concern. He may be a 
socialist, — as an individual he has a right to 
hold any theory of economic and political 
advance. Whenever such methods are attempts 
to embody the ethics of the Gospel, he has a 
right to proclaim them. But as a priest and 
prophet of religion, he misuses his great trust 
if he preaches an economic method in the place 
of spiritual righteousness. 

For the preacher does the most by keeping 



Ethical Sermons 347 

conscience sensitive. All personal and social 
advance waits upon moral and spiritual forces. 
"To raise up men who have the fear of God 
before them/' to use the famous saying of Oliver 
Cromwell, is to insure the victory of righteous- 
ness. The best the pulpit can do is to shape 
public opinion and inspire men to apply their 
religious faith to daily life. 

It is also the mission of the pulpit to increase 
the spirit of good will among men. Here lies 
the hope of peaceful progress. Men cannot 
understand others because they look solely at 
their personal or class interest. To teach 
Christ's view of man and His passion for the 
lowest and the weakest is to promote the spirit 
of brotherly love and increase the realm of per- 
sonal rectitude and social justice. 

As the ethical teacher, the pulpit must insist 
upon the spiritual meaning and obligation of 
all life and relation and work. Generous giving 
cannot atone for unjust accumulation. The 
whole process of life is ethical; nothing can be 
excepted, nothing can escape. We must insist 
that all life is to be religious, and in all things 
God's will can be found and obeyed. " It would 
be in the line of a genuine apostolic succession if 
some of you should come to be enrolled with the 
pioneers in this work of furnishing moral lead- 
ership for the social struggle which is to have 



348 Ethical Sermons 

so large a place in the life to which you will be 
called to minister. Your predecessors, the Pu- 
ritan Pastors of New England, were strong in 
their sense of the new social order which was 
to come as the earthly realization of the King- 
dom of God. They dreamed of a genuine theoc- 
racy, a civil order in which the reign of the 
divine Spirit would be complete. However 
imperfect, and even clumsy, modern criticism 
may deem some of their attempts to establish 
their social ideals, the real content of those ideals, 
the brave conception of an associated life which 
should embody and express the will and purpose 
of God for men, was possessed of high and lasting 
value. And it will add a hundred fold to your 
own usefulness as pastors, if you too, may, in 
the language of our day, hold aloft ideals which 
shall be equally commanding, and labor for their 
realization with the same splendid zeal." l 

1 Brown, "The Social Message of the Modern Pulpit," 
p. 32. 



XVII 
THE ETHICS OF PULPIT SPEECH 



OUTLINE 

The Effect of the Critical Spirit on Pulpit Speech. 
The Relation of Ethics to Speech. 

The moral quality of words. 
The Ethical Demand for Truthfulness to the Message. 

Reality of thought expressed in reality of speech. 

The vivid concept of truth. 

The fidelity to study and experience. 

Conscientious clearness of style. 

Bible truth in intelligible speech. 

Illustrations that reveal truth. 

Freedom from cant phrases of religion. 

Disuse of technical terms. 

Questions of style and the power of the pulpit. 
The Ethical Demand for Truthfulness to the Person. 

Relation of the word to the preacher. 

True speech cannot be borrowed. 

The patchwork style and the patchwork sermon. 

Training and the personal style. 

The personal message in frankness and fulness. 

The right and wrong use of humor. 

The moral defect of the sensational pulpit. 
The Ethical Demand for Practical Speech. 

The unselfish use of style. 

Plain but pure speech. 

A pure conscience and a pure taste. 

References : 

Phelps. "English Style in Public Discourse." 

Phelps. "Men and Books." 

Hill. "Our English." 

Hood. "Lamps, Pitchers, and Trumpets." Lect. 

7-9. 
Johnson. "The Ideal Ministry." Lect. 23. 



350 



XVII 
THE ETHICS OF PULPIT SPEECH 

It was said of an eminent astronomer of our 
age that he had supreme regard for a fact. And 
in his scorn of theories, and the painstaking, 
persistent search for truth in his chosen sphere, 
he was no doubt a good expression of the age- 
spirit. A robust, fearless spirit it is, with too 
little reverence for the past, sometimes per- 
mitting the facts of the senses to hide the facts 
of the spirit ; but asking the single question — 
What is truth ? — willing to abide by it and 
confident of its victory. This spirit may be 
traced immediately to the influence of modern 
science ; but the primary cause is the very Spirit 
of truth preparing again the way of the Lord in 
the hearts of men. 

It has certainly left its healthful criticism upon 
speech, increasing the dignity, responsibility, 
and power of a word. It wants truth first and 
always, better perhaps to say reality, the word 
to stand for a reality of thought and feeling, 
351 



352 The Ethics of Pulpit Speech 

the man to speak just as he thinks and as he 
feels the truth. This is the ethical quality of 
pulpit speech, the exact correspondence between 
the outer form and the inner reality. 

The age is rightly impatient of verbiage. The 
demand for short sermons is not altogether 
the sign of an unsanctified heart. Brevity is 
often synonymous with directness. And men 
will lose the limits of time now, as they have 
always done, under the charm of a living mes- 
sage. But they refuse to be satisfied with 
"words, words, words," when they ask for 
truth. 

The critical spirit is the unwilling ally of the 
pulpit. We may well rejoice that it pricks the 
rhetorical windbag, that it humbles the empty 
vanities of style. It helps to separate the pre- 
cious from the vile that the mouth may be more 
as the Lord's mouth. As far as words corre- 
spond to the truth, the man, and the needs of the 
human heart, have they the moral equality. 
The ethics of pulpit speech then demand that 
the speech be truthful, personal, and practical. 

Reality, truthfulness, is the prime quality of 
ethical speech. It is the moral force of the 
pulpit as of all speech. Two college presidents 
were discussing before an audience of teachers 
certain conditions of college entrance. One 
used his subtle charm of speech to confuse the 



The Ethics of Pulpit Speech 353 

issue, to puzzle the minds and postpone action. 
The other, from a thorough study of the ques- 
tions and a strong conviction of the best way, 
spoke with a simple directness that revealed and 
convinced. The one was a politician, playing 
with words to win the game. The other was a 
truth-seeker and truth-speaker, making his 
words luminous with reality. 

A real message, a living message, must find 
its voice in pulpit speech. Words must give the 
"measure, the quality, the power, and the life'' 
of the truth they would teach. A sincere mind 
that reaches clear views of truth will always 
aim to speak the truth. Thought is the vital 
fashioner of style, crystalline and virile, or hazy 
and nerveless, as the thought is so. 

Reality of thought then is the important ques- 
tion for any one who would be a spiritual teacher 
of men. How can the mind get a vivid concept 
of the message of Christ? Men say, Pray for 
the illumination of the Spirit, surrender fully 
and be filled with the Spirit, give up vain search 
and give yourselves to Christian duty, and you 
shall know. Each piece of advice, good and 
necessary as it is, by itself alone hardly meets 
the case ; and is too often used as a cheap and 
easy substitute for that which requires an 
arduous and protracted mental and spiritual 
discipline. To know the truth of God demands 
2a 



354 The Ethics of Pulpit Speech 

the strenuous exercise of the mental powers. 
No hasty skimming of books and papers, no 
dilettante idling over polite literature, will lodge 
God's thoughts in the mind in their vitalizing 
reality. We must work our way at whatever 
personal cost into the life of the writers of 
Scripture. The new exegesis is making the 
Bible a living book. It is the spirit of thorough- 
ness that pushes every word to its roots and 
relations, compelling it to yield its utmost sug- 
gestiveness; it is the spirit of humility that is 
willing to subject every opinion to the white 
light of the Word; it is the spirit of a Pauline 
ambition, not counting itself to have attained, 
but ever, with unveiled face, welcoming truth 
from every source and expecting larger visions 
of truth. It is the spirit of loyalty "to every 
fact, to every teaching of the Word, to every 
lesson of providence, to every precept of the 
Spirit." Truth is not known, — it does not yet 
lie in the mind as a living reality, — until the 
will yields its glad assent, and the emotions 
thrill their response to the claim of its sover- 
eignty and beauty. 

It is one thing to know the divinity of our 
Lord as a theological dogma, to be able even to 
marshal in logical and forceful array the accepted 
argument for the doctrine. It is another and 
higher truth to have seen the glory of Christ 



The Ethics of Pulpit Speech 355 

flash from the pages of the Word, or gleam in 
the holy place of prayer, and in that light to 
know the depth of need and the glory of life 
and out of that dual experience to gain the 
strength of faith. There was the deepest and 
strongest exercise of the entire spiritual man in 
the passionate cry of Charles Kingsley, "I can- 
not, I cannot live without the man Christ 
Jesus." 

The man who forms his concepts of Divine 
truth through such mental and spiritual sin- 
cerity will carry his sensitiveness and honesty 
into every word that he uses in public teaching. 
He will have some sense of the imperfect medium 
of language — how that the most transparent 
words cannot tell all that is in a man's heart. 
And so nothing that can be removed will be 
suffered to dim the meaning of his thought. 
The man who has worked his own way to the 
meaning of truth understands some of the 
hindrances to its reception on the part of other 
men, their misconceptions, prejudices, dislikes, 
prepossessions — the whole environment of years 
of life that determine what a man shall see. 
And so the true preacher will try to find accept- 
able words, words that are the nearest kin to the 
hearers, that break through the crust of mental 
and spiritual habit and find the heart and 
conscience. 



356 The Ethics of Pulpit Speech 

Bible phrases need often to be put into present 
speech. The " Twentieth Century New Testa- 
ment" is an attempt in this direction. Some 
men think that the quoting of Scripture is laying 
the very power of the Spirit upon human hearts. 
So their speech is a Bible mosaic. Nothing is 
better than an apt use of Scripture. Such 
quotations as those of Alexander Maclaren of 
Manchester are sudden gleams of truth, or blows 
that clinch the argument, or strokes that lay 
open the very secrets of life. They are never 
inapt or commonplace; they are the work of a 
true exegete, who uses his critical knowledge to 
lighten or strengthen. But too many men use 
Scripture in a magical fashion, either out of 
reverence for the very language of inspiration 
or as a pious cloak for their mental poverty. 

Bible words and phrases are often truer to the 
original tongues than to our own; they have 
something of an oriental atmosphere; they are 
colored by the life of a strange people. In so 
far as this is true, they may have the effect of 
a far-away message, even something of unreality. 
Therefore the thought of the Bible must be 
clothed in the speech of present life. And does 
not Bible language, from our very familiarity 
with it, sometimes fail to give distinct and vivid 
impression ; fail to arrest the thought and stimu- 
late interest and inquiry ? The old truths need 



The Ethics of Pulpit Speech 357 

to be poured into the moulds of present use. 
The life must find its way into forms nearest 
and quickest to the thought and sensibility of 
living men. 

How many illustrations of the pulpit must be 
called darkeners, not revealers, of spiritual 
truth ! They are ingenious rather than natural, 
artificial not striking, sensational, serving them- 
selves more than the truth. Or the illustrations 
are so trite, — analogies of nature, stories of 
personal experience, extracts from homiletical 
handbooks, — that they are a threadbare tex- 
ture, a faded drapery, or a window soiled and 
scratched and cracked by long and careless use. 

A busy minister of a great church joined the 
class of a biological laboratory that he might 
get the new symbolism and illustrations by which 
so many men were newly expressing the facts 
of life. " If this ignominious tale be founded on 
fact," says Dr. Watson concerning the reported 
pepper-caster of illustrations with which some 
ministers flavor their sermons, "and be not a 
scandal of the enemy, then the Protestant 
Church ought also to have an Index Expurga- 
torius, and its central authorities insert therein 
books which it is inexpedient for ministers to 
possess. In this class should be included 'The 
Garland of Quotations' and 'The Reservoir of 
Illustrations/ and it might be well if the chief 



358 The Ethics of Pulpit Speech 

of this important department should also give 
notice at fixed times that such and such anec- 
dotes, having been worn threadbare, are now 
withdrawn from circulation. The cost of this 
office would be cheerfully defrayed by the 
laity." 

This does not mean that the commonplace 
and familiar are to be avoided. The simplicity 
of illustration will depend largely on its familiar- 
ity. The man who is ever striving after the 
unusual violates the first law of simplicity, 
"much within and little without," and is not 
pure and true in his style. All of Christ's 
illustrations are of simple things, but He gave 
them immortal value by the high truth that He 
put into them. 

To overdo illustration is ethically as bad as to 
use artificial ones. "Some sermons," says Dr. 
Garvie, "consist of very many big but often 
cheap beads of illustration and quotation, kept 
together by a very thin thread of thought, 
sometimes by little more than the repetition of 
the text. Sunsets and waterfalls and flowers 
and birds are not necessary to every sermon; 
still less should descriptions of scenery form 
the greater part of the sermon. A man who 
professes to be delivering a message which is 
either a savour of life unto life or of death unto 
death to his hearers should have neither the 



The Ethics of Pulpit Speech 359 

time nor the taste for such elegant and super- 
ficial trifling. Preaching is not art or poetry, 
although it may use both. Admiration of 
nature in it should be swallowed up in adoration 
of God. The man in whom the Word of the 
Lord burns will never make merely a picture or 
a poem out of his sermon. " * 

The most unreal uses of speech by the pulpit 
are the cant phrases of religion. How the moral 
sense has been offended by the glib and trite use 
of such great phrases as " Coming to Jesus" and 
" Saving the Soul " ! Expressions of this class 
rarely convey the great realities once connected 
with them. They have been so long, often 
thoughtlessly, used, that they have become loose 
and effusive terms of religious sentimentalism, 
meaning anything that the mind of the hearer 
may interpret. They lack definiteness and ex- 
actness and so truthfulness. They are not the 
symbols of clear thinking and so fail of clear 
impression. Truth is unchangeable; but from 
the nature of man there must be change, growth, 
in the conception of truth and so of its symbols. 
It is inevitable, then, that forms once types of 
the loftiest conceptions and charged with emo- 
tion should become so common as to lose their 
reality, — stereotyped and soulless forms, the 
cant speech of religion. There is a natural 

1 Garvie, " Guide to Preachers," p. 235. 



360 The Ethics of Pulpit Speech 

impatience at words and phrases "exhausted by 
overuse." No form of words, however signifi- 
cant, is free from this law of change. We may 
be thankful that the revisers have taken one of 
these phrases out of our English Bible and given 
us a new form of words, adequate to the truth 
that religion is coterminous and synonymous 
with a man's whole life. "For what doth it 
profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit 
his life?" 

And for the same reason reality demands the 
disuse of technical terms of theology in the pulpit. 
Some words the Gospel has created and these 
are necessary to accuracy and fulness of thought, 
and so must be retained in pulpit speech. But 
there are many others, not found in the Scrip- 
tures or rarely found, that are creations of 
theological and philosophical contests, having 
no vital connection with the Gospel and in no 
sense a present expression of it. John Foster 
well calls them "a kind of Popery of language, 
requiring everything to be marked with the 
signs of the holy church." There has been an 
improvement since Foster's day in the purity 
of pulpit English. There are more men now 
who are in the pulpit what they are out of it, 
and out of the pulpit what they are in it. But 
there is still the tendency to speak religious 
truth in a dialect which should be essentially 



The Ethics of Pulpit Speech 361 

spiritual and so far unserviceable for any other 
subject. Such speech gives the Gospel the air 
of a professional thing, and so far is untrue to 
the measure and spirit of its message. When you 
begin to speak of the subjective and the objec- 
tive, — you are not speaking to the popular 
mind. The mere technicalities of theology are 
for treatises of theology and for the study ; but 
in the pulpit let the preacher deal with living 
men and women in words that are closest to 
their daily experience. 

In his introduction to " Straight Sermons" 
or " Sermons to Young Men," Dr. Henry van 
Dyke voices the purpose of reality. " No think- 
ing minister can stand up before a company 
largely composed of young men without a 
strong wish to be plain-spoken and to come 
straight to the point. They have a fine im- 
patience of all mere formalities and roundabout 
modes of speech, which acts as a moral tonic to 
brace the mind from vagueness and cleanse the 
tongue from cant. They want a man to say 
what he means. The influence of this unspoken 
demand is wholesome and inspiring, and the 
preacher ought to show his gratitude for it by 
honestly endeavoring to meet it . For this reason 
I have tried to write these sermons not in a theo- 
logical dialect, but in the English language." 

This is not a factitious discussion of the 



362 The Ethics of Pulpit Speech 

hindrances to reality of expression. Let the 
preacher fail of mental thoroughness, alertness, 
vividness, sensitiveness, and his speech will be 
made of the commonplaces of phrase, quota- 
tion, and illustration. Then let this verbal un- 
reality be spoken with an unreal elocution (the 
two are almost inseparable, the expression of the 
same nature), the voice of a "holy tone," rising 
and falling in regular cadence, and the hearer 
may well say with Tennyson's "Northern 
Farmer " : 

"An' 'eard um a bummin' awaay loike a buzzard-clock 

ower my yead, 
An' I niver knaw'd whot a mean'd but I thowt a 'ad 

summut to saay, 
An* I thowt a said whot a owt to 'a said, an' I 

coomed awaay." 

These questions of style are more than matters 
of taste and individuality. It is right to lift 
them into the sphere of ethics. They have to 
do with the influence of the pulpit and with a 
man's right to stand in the pulpit. Unreality of 
speech is dishonesty of speech. Old words lose 
their significance. The national mind grows. 
Epochs in life and theology give birth to new 
ideas. Language, too, must grow to express 
the larger life. The man who by mental in- 
dolence or the backward look fails to live in 
his generation cannot be God's voice to them. 



The Ethics of Pulpit Speech 363 

Charles G. Finney did not speak a religious 
dialect. He threw away the terminology with 
which a false philosophy had hidden the truth, 
and spoke directly to the conscience and com- 
mon sense of men in words and images present 
and real and so throbbing with the power of 
divine life. 

The example of Mr. Finney naturally suggests 
the fact that preaching is in no sense an im- 
personal matter. Truth must not only have a 
reality in speech, — the words give, as far as 
it may be possible for words to give, "the 
measure, the spirit, and the power of the truth," 
— that truth must be through a personality. 
The personal form will be a vital part of its 
reality. The very philosophy of preaching de- 
mands this; there can be no true preaching 
without it. How is it that the highest power 
of a word is inseparable from its sound? "The 
Essays of Emerson," said Mr. Alcott, "were 
never truly understood until he had spoken 
them." There is life in the spoken word not 
found in the written. Through the spoken 
word does the speaker breathe his own life into 
the souls of his hearers. Therefore the man is 
inseparable from the message; his personal ex- 
perience apprehends and colors it ; his character 
illustrates and enforces it. The thinking, the 
emotions, the experiences, — the life, personal, 



364 The Ethics of Pulpit Speech 

peculiar, individual, — must show itself in the 
speech of a living man. 

Such speech cannot be borrowed. No lan- 
guage of others, however appropriate and beau- 
tiful, can satisfy the ethics of the true preacher. 
It is not simply the question of plagiarism in its 
ordinary sense, getting the credit that belongs 
to another ; it is primarily the question of being 
true to one's self. The words of others are not 
truly your words. "The style is the man." 
You must speak your own message and not 
another's. The voice will not be Jacob's and 
the garments Esau's. Needless quotation is only 
vain pedantry. The marshalling of names 
and learned instances are marks of shallow 
scholarship. They are accretions and not 
growths. They cover the true man ; they clog 
his utterance; they are alien to the conception 
of preaching. Authorities are to be cited and 
quotations used only to strengthen the position 
held or add needed light and splendor to the 
truth. 

It must be remembered that the style will be 
a patchwork if the sermon is so constructed. 
The true sermon is a growth, not a manufacture. 
And the average audience feels the difference 
between the sermon that is the voice of the 
deepest life of the man and the one that is put 
together out of commentaries and handbooks 



The Ethics of Pulpit Speech 365 

of illustration, to meet the Sunday's appoint- 
ment. As teachers of the Gospel are we not 
under moral bonds to give the truth its most 
effective form ? Are we not to form our habits 
of work so that the truth may have time to 
grow into vivid conceptions and quicken the 
emotions, — taking a deep hold of the entire 
mental and moral nature, — so that we shall 
speak, the entire man and not another, so that 
the sermon shall be a living word of God? 

We must feel the need of the best training, 
and training that shall continue as long as life 
lasts, if the speech is to be ever personal and 
yet varying as the phases of truth and its appli- 
cation to the natures of men. Cultivation, 
familiar converse with great thinkers and the 
masters of English style, will not destroy indi- 
viduality, but free it, lead it out into fuller and 
more facile exercise. Such minds must speak 
the message God gives in their own way. They 
cannot be imitators, and yet they are more 
versatile, more many-sided, in their style, fitted 
to the varying phases of truth, and individual 
in them all. 

Here is where the man of narrow culture and 
small literary furnishing shows his limit. He 
keeps a rigid individuality in his speech, often 
more prominent than the truth expressed; or 
he uses the manner of others without the power 



366 The Ethics of Pulpit Speech 

of assimilation, changing with the copy like the 
unformed hand of the schoolboy. 

The preacher is called upon to speak the 
message of God in confident frankness and ful- 
ness. The true influence of the pulpit demands 
this. A reputation for undue reserve, for policy 
and expediency, is fatal to leadership. Men love 
to be trusted, and they open their hearts to the 
teacher who speaks directly and without dis- 
guise. It is true that half-formed ideas should 
be voiceless, that the "spectres of the mind" 
should be laid in silence, that though the range 
of teaching be greatly narrowed, its accent 
should be that of humble certitude. But there 
should be no timid withholding of the personal 
expression of the truth. Let every man give the 
best truth he has, in the best and fullest way he 
has. All ways of euphemistic circumlocution 
are essentially dishonest. If you wish to realize 
how a man who lacks truth in the inner part 
instinctively hides himself behind his speech, 
study Shakespeare's delineation of the King in 
''Hamlet." Few can resist the charm of the 
man who speaks with simple and honest direct- 
ness, who gives himself in his speech with costly 
self-exhaustion. Such fountains are quickly 
filled again from the upper springs. 

But is there no limit to this personal expression 
in speech ? There certainly is, and not hard to 



The Ethics of Pulpit Speech 367 

find. The moment that the personal element 
fails to exalt and impress the truth, that mo- 
ment the limit of its rightful expression has been 
reached. 

It is the danger of humor in the pulpit. In no 
sense is this a plea for any undue seriousness. 
The mock gravity "that merely hides with 
solemn front the lack of thought and feeling' ' 
is worthy of the satire it has received. But is 
it not time for the clerical jester to receive with 
the clerical prig the contempt he deserves? 
The man who has no sense of humor is to be 
pitied; he lacks the sense of proportion; he 
may lack richness of nature and gentleness and 
sensitiveness. It is a most helpful quality to 
the pulpit, keeping it from extravagance and 
bitterness. Laughter may not be wrong in the 
church. "There is a smile," to use the words 
of Bishop Brooks, "which sweeps across a great 
congregation like the breath of a May morning, 
making it fruitful for whatever good thing may 
be sowed in it, and another laughter that is like 
the crackling of thorns under a pot." But have 
we not seen the clerical jester lay his defiling 
touch upon the most sacred things ? The most 
impressive occasion, the opportunity for the 
holiest influence, has been thrown away by the 
funny story or the inconvenient jest. Deliver 
the Church from the man who cannot control 



368 The Ethics of Pulpit Speech 

and sanctify his humor ! Does it make the pun 
any the less vicious for a famous clergyman to 
say that even Jonah had to be whaled to take the 
path of duty ? The trouble with the funny man 
in the pulpit, the clerical jester, is that the wit 
is an end, not a means. It is indulged and en- 
joyed as a play, and not kept conducive to the 
softening and winning of the heart. It is an 
undue expression of personal taste and eccen- 
tric display, and not the natural expression of 
a consecrated manhood. And in this spirit 
humor in pulpit speech becomes essentially 
immoral. 

And the same charge can be drawn against the 
sensational pulpit and for the same reason. The 
evil of sensationalism is in the undue expression 
of the man; it puts the man before the message. 
It has been wittily said that the difference be- 
tween an advertiser and a sensational preacher 
was that the first advertised his wares and the 
second advertised himself. It may fill the 
church and trumpet the preacher's name by 
the lips of thousands, but that may not work 
for righteousness and establish the kingdom of 
spiritual life. " You may lose your fortune and 
gain another; you may lose your wife and win 
another; but if you lose your soul, good-by, 
John," was the way a certain noted preacher of 
our day tried to express the value of the soul. 



The Ethics of Pulpit Speech 369 

It certainly made a sensation. But did it open 
the heavens and let light upon the immortal 
nature of man? It did not make a silence in 
the soul for God to speak. People thought it a 
smart saying, and enjoyed the audacity of it, 
as they would the keen and not too reverent 
wit of Life or any well-known society paper. 

No doubt we have too much conservative 
dulness. We must catch the ears of the people. 
The pulpit must add vivacity to spirituality. 
But is there any message of God, any word for 
the restless, unsatisfied heart of humanity, in 
"Yea, and its Variation," "Gnawed Mangers," 
"Impossible Balloons," and "The Willing Hat" ? 
The truth is, such expressions are never sug- 
gestive and attractive forms of truth, too often 
but the voice of a vain and shallow nature. A 
flippant sensationalism can only deaden the 
true hunger of the soul, dissipate earnest thought 
by its irreverence, and in the end prove a feeble 
rival to the comic opera and the variety theatre. 

The personal element in pulpit speech must be 
true to a sincere, reverent, consecrated man- 
hood. Such personality God's word seeks for 
its expression. 

The ethics of pulpit speech go beyond the 
message and the preacher; they demand of 
words more than the setting forth of a reality 
and a personality. The personal knowledge of 

2b 



370 The Ethics of Pulpit Speech 

divine truth must be so spoken that men shall 
catch the preacher's vision and feel the preacher's 
passion. The bond of a common experience, a 
common sympathy, must be felt in the words. 
The audience must ever be in the mind of the 
preacher. The speech must be practical. 

Some preachers seem more anxious for the 
salvation of the sermon than for the salvation 
of the hearer. The sermon at times has the air 
of the study, the flavor of philosophy, poetry, 
history, the favorite literature. It may satisfy 
the aesthetic sense, but is not spoken in the 
language that men use in practical matters. 
Style is a relative matter; but the need of the 
audience must be consulted as well as the 
literary taste and ideal of the speaker. There 
is far more preaching over the heads of the 
audience than men suppose. It is true that the 
people should be made to think, the sermons 
cannot be too thoughtful; the pulpit should be 
rescued from the weakness of sentimentalism 
by virile, intellectual preaching; but the great- 
est truths can be clothed in ways intelligible to 
common men, and this the very purpose of 
preaching demands. And this should be done 
even at the cost of some cherished literary ideals. 
A literary style in the pulpit, born of the study 
and not of the daily walks of men, is cold and 
exclusive; it is defective morally, it shows a 



The Ethics of Pulpit Speech 371 

lack of moral intensity, it does not pulse with 
the love that strives to save. You will find this 
entry in the diary of Dr. Chalmers : "I feel that 
I do not come close enough to the heart and the 
experience of my people. I begin to think that 
the phraseology of the old writers must be given 
up for one more accommodated to the present 
age." And Thomas Arnold has given us a true 
hint when he says in a preface to a volume of 
sermons, — "I have tried to write in such a style 
as might be used in real life, in serious conversa- 
tion with our friends." The preacher is more 
than an artist, delighting in self-expression. 
The art-view of the sermon is fitted to the club- 
view of the Church: "A very pleasant song of 
one that hath a pleasant voice." It does not 
break the bonds of the oppressor, or melt cold 
hearts into Godward emotion. The finest cul- 
ture, the most finished style, may be nothing 
compared to the simple, rough speech inspired 
of the Spirit and voicing great thoughts. 

Plain, direct speech, intelligible to men, may 
come, ought to come, from the pure wells of 
English undefiled. If it is not pure speech, it 
cannot be moral in the highest sense. How can 
we degrade our sacred tongue by slang and 
vulgar colloquialism in the pulpit ! How can we 
defile its crystal streams with the foul waters of 
careless speech ! Let us never speak half the 



372 The Ethics of Pulpit Speech 

language of Ashdod and half of Canaan, but be 
of pure English lip. 

The sermon should be the speech of life, but 
worthy of the message of life and the souls of 
men. Wendell Phillips described speaking as 
"animated conversation/ ' and only the added 
word dignified is needed for preaching. The 
Gospel cannot be helped by slang and the 
slovenly language of the street. Yellow journal- 
ism is not moralized by adoption in the pulpit. 
Even the man of the street will not respect such 
language from the advocate of the new life. 
It is a familiarity that argues contempt and 
surely breeds it. It is essentially unethical; it 
does not adorn the doctrine of Christ. 

If we reverence the message Christ has given 
us, reverence the souls of men committed to our 
charge, reverence ourselves, — earthen vessels, 
but intrusted with the heavenly treasure, — 
then we shall be kept from all pomposity and 
vulgarity and have that earnest simplicity of 
speech that shall make our preaching a living 
word of God. 

And in seeking simplicity of pulpit speech for 
the sake of reaching men, it must not be for- 
gotten that it is the element of strength, and as 
Mr. Charles Dudley Warner has finely said, the 
element of immortality in literature. It goes 
beneath the surface of style and takes hold of 



The Ethics of Pulpit Speech 373 

the grace of humility. The art of preaching, 
like all other true arts, is simple and chaste. 
"To be much within and little without, to do 
all for truth, nothing for show, and to express 
the largest possible meaning with the least pos- 
sible stress of expression, — this is its law." 

It will help us to build after the "pattern in 
the Mount," if we make a lifelong study of 
words, words in the best books and words in the 
daily intercourse with men; if we make a life- 
long study of style, the expression of the finest 
literature and the methods of common men. 
Then we must diligently keep out of the ruts of 
theological thought and speech, not only by 
the spirit that takes us into the haunts of men, 
but into other fields of study aerating the mind 
and giving fresh forms of thought. As has 
already been suggested, conscience has some- 
thing to do with taste. Speech has its best 
promise and safeguard in the growth of the 
spiritual life. A pure conscience will coincide 
with a pure taste. Then the "yea of the tongue 
will express the full and mighty affirmative of 
the entire man, nothing more, nothing less; 
then the spoken nay will utter the absolute, 
emphatic protest of mind, heart, and conscience, 
nothing more, nothing less; then the voice of 
man sounds forth as the very trumpet of God." 



INDEX 



Abbott, Lyman, definition of 
authority, 166; the social 
instruction of the pulpit, 343. 

Acts iv., Expository plan, 296. 

Age, religious thought and life 
of the, 102; the message of 
the, 191. 

Alger, G. W., failure of law to 
recognize new social rela- 
tions, 336. 

Amos, a list of sermon topics 
on, 107. 

Apologetics, definition of, 317; 
examples of, 317; urgent 
need of, 319. 

Apologist, how shall the 
preacher do the work of the, 
320; Canon Liddon as an, 
323. 

Asceticism, and the spiritual 
life, 117. 

Atonement, place of the, in 
preaching, 227; four ele- 
ments of the, to be preached, 
229. 

Augustine, the message of, 198. 

Authority, definition of, 166; 
relation of, to experience, 
182; relation between inner 
and outer, 186. 



B 



Balaam, Robertson's portrait 
of, 333. 



Beecher, Henry Ward, the 
satire of, 128; health and 
work, 46 ; relation of health 
to spiritual vision, 49; on 
the "thrust power" of the 
voice, 53; variety of topics 
in expository preaching, 
291. 

Bible, systematic knowledge 
of, 100; devotional study 
of, 146. 

Boynton, Dr. Nehemiah, sug- 
gestions as to books and 
reading, 103. 

Brooks, Phillips, suggestions 
on method, 108; the mes- 
sage of, 199; on the value 
of the soul, 277; on ex- 
pository preaching, 303. 

Brown, Charles R., concern- 
ing the housing of work- 
ingmen, 243; the minister 
as a social teacher, 347. 

Brown, Dr. John, quotation 
from "Spare Hours," 60. 

Browning, Robert, quotation 
from Prologue to Asolando, 
36. 



Chalmers, Thomas, the secu- 
larizing influence of rou- 
tine, 140. 

Charming, William E., denial 
of the physical life, 43; the 
message of, 199. 



375 



376 



Index 



Cheerfulness and gravity, ele- 
ments of a spiritual preacher, 
129. 

Christ, the personal method 
of, 8; relation of, to the 
Bible, 195; to nature and 
life, 196. 

Church, Dean, cultivation of 
the spiritual life, 146. 

Clement, the message of, 
198. 

Coe, Geo. A., religious states 
and the nervous system, 48 ; 
effect of joy on the physical 
life, 52. 

Courage, the necessary quality 
of the preacher, 16. 

Culture, scholarly, relation of, 
to character, 71 ; and sin- 
cerity, 71 ; and humility, 
74; and balance, 75; re- 
lation of, to preaching, 77; 
to the ideal of the sermon, 
77; and the instructive 
sermon, 79; the choice of 
subjects, 80; the growth 
of the sermon, 81; the 
style of the sermon, 82. 



D 



Dale, R. W., preaching and 
the religious affections, 
141; the truth of the 
Living Christ, 197; defi- 
nition of expository preach- 
ing, 285. 

Doctrine, present tendency to 
ignore, 307; the difficulty 
of teaching, 309; the loss 
of, in preaching, 311; the 
preaching of, essential, 312; 
what should mark the 
preaching of, 313. 

Dykes, Dr. J. Oswald, the 
union of the personal and 
social message, 241. 



E 



Earnestness, moral, the neces- 
sary quality of the preacher, 
15. 

Ethics, the effect of reducing 
the Gospel to, 327; the 
place of, in the New Testa- 
ment, 329 ; present demand 
for the preaching of, 330; 
what shall be the preaching 
of, 331; the biographical 
sermon and the teaching of, 
332 ; methods for the pulpit 
teaching of, 343; the true 
spirit for the teaching of, 
345. 

Evangelism, the truths to 
be preached in, 268; weak- 
ness of a passing, 271. 

Evangelist, the preacher as 
an, 264; office of the, 271. 

Experience, and the author- 
ity of the message, 179. 



F 



Faith, sincere, the necessary 
quality of the preacher, 14; 
its place in the Gospel 
message, 231. 

Father, the righteous, the 
revelation of Christ, 215. 

Fear, the appeal to, in preach- 
ing, 275. 

Feeling, the wrong emphasis 
upon, 218. 

Finney, Charles G., style of, 
363. 

Foss, Bishop, on the preach- 
ing needed, 79. 



G 



Garvie, A. E., the evil of too 
many illustrations in preach- 
ing, 358. 



Index 



377 



Gilder, R. A., "The Song of a 
Heathen," 14. 

God, the righteous, the revela- 
tion of the Old Testament, 
214. 

God, the person and presence 
of, best taught through 
Christ, 224. 



Harrison, Frederic, on the 
power of Christianity for 
the social life, 252. 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, rela- 
tion of the heart to reality 
of thought, 33 ; true method 
of appeal, 302. 

Health, natural leadership of, 
48; relation to personal 
influence, 46; the attrac- 
tion of, 47 ; and sane teach- 
ing, 48; and the best work, 
51. 

Hodge, Dr. Caspar, the spirit 
of humanity, 75. 

Hopefulness, a necessary 
quality of the preacher, 17. 

Hoppin, the influence of 
culture on the preacher, 
77. 

Humility, the quality of a 
spiritual preacher, 127. 

Humor, the good and evil of, 
in the pulpit, 367. 

Huntington, Bishop F. D., 
on unselfishness in the min- 
istry, 125. 



Ideal, a growing ethical, 

335. 
Illustrations, the wrong use of, 

357. 
Ingelow, Jean, quotation from 

"Brothers and a Sermon," 

34. 



Intellectual work, breadth of, 
demanded of the pulpit, 
70. 

Isaiah xxxv. 3-10, Expository 
plan, 357. 



Jefferson, Charles E., the 
physical strain of public 
speaking, 54. 

John xvi. 12-15, Expository 
plan, 297. 

Johnson, E. H., power of 
meditation, 149; Christian 
labor and the highest life, 
152. 

K 

King, "Rational Living," 
breadth of interests and 
influence, 34, 84; effect of 
insights unobeyed, 140. 

Kingdom, Christ's teaching 
concerning the, 254. 

Kingsley, Charles, the sacred- 
ness of the earth and human 
life, 119; quotation from 
the "Wild Fowl," 133; 
description of the preach- 
ing of Augustine, 181. 

Kipling, quotation from, 160. 



Life, the aim of the Gospel 
message, 210; Christ's por- 
trait of in the Beatitudes, 
216. 

Life, Higher, doctrine of, 
155. 

Life, the future, not the 
emphasis of the Gospel 
message, 218. 

Life, eternal, Christ's teach- 
ing of, 219. 

Liturgy and the Message, 192. 



378 



Index 



Love, John's definition of 

life, 212. 
Luther, the message of, 199. 



M 



Mabie, H. W., the character 
of meditation, 151. 

Maclaren, Alexander, the plans 
of, 299. 

Man, the full truth of, best 
taught by Jesus, 225. 

Mathews, Prof. Shailer, on 
the social teaching of the 
Church, 256. 

Matthew v. 1-12, xiii. 1-9, viii. 
5-13, Expository plans, 
294-5. 

Maurice, F. D., the danger of 
playing with words, 142. 

Mazzini, Joseph, on the au- 
thority of Jesus as a social 
teacher, 252. 

McConnell, Dr. S. D., the 
temper of the age, 194. 

McGlynn, Dr., concerning mis- 
sion preaching, 268. 

Message, simplicity of the, in 
Christ, 200; comprehen- 
siveness of the, 201, 203; 
the social, of the Old Testa- 
ment, 248; of the New 
Testament, 250. 

Messenger, use of, in New 
Testament, 8. 

Method, need of, for the 
minister's growth, 92; a 
hindrance to, in the minis- 
ter's peculiar circumstances 
93; power gained by, 96 
moral elevation of, 98 
danger of, 99; subjects 
to be covered by, 200; in 
the study, a help to method 
in teaching, 104; exposi- 
tory, suggestions as to, 
299. 



Mill, John Stuart, compari- 
son of Christian ethics with 
pagan, 252. 

Milman, Dean, method of, 98. 

Monasticism, and its influence 
on the physical life, 42. 

Moore, Dr. Geo. F., on the 
larger interpretation of 
Scripture, 101. 

Motives, the appeal to, in 
preaching, 262. 

Mysticism, and the spiritual 
life, 114; the danger and 
weakness of, 115. 



N 



Nicoll, Dr. Robertson, the 
work of untutored men, 67. 



O 

Organization and the 
191. 

P 



Parkhurst, Charles H., on 
habit in prayer, 148. 

Passion, a new ethical, 340. 

Patience, the quality of a 
spiritual preacher, 132. 

Penalty, escape from, a partial 
Gospel message, 216. 

Perfection, the doctrine of 
sinless, 155. 

Person, the Gospel of a, and 
the need of our age, 209. 

Personality, special value of, 
in preaching, 4; impor- 
tance of, shown in the 
history of preaching, 11; 
the nature of, 27; the limi- 
tation of, 24; Christian 
faith implies the growth of, 
28; to be enriched in 
spiritual wisdom, 29; in 
human sympathy, 32. 



Index 



379 



Peters, Dr. C. H. F., a story 
of the stars, 134. 

Phelps, Austin, true theory 
of ministerial culture, 85; 
the mission of comfort, 50. 

Philippians, a list of sermon 
topics on, 107. 

Pietism and the spiritual life, 
116. 

Plagiarism, the ethics of, 364. 

Play, the law of, in the physi- 
cal life, 58. 

Powers, Hiram, story of, 
36. 

Prayer, habit of daily, 147. 

Preaching, reason for the per- 
petuity of, 5; positive and 
constructive, 235 ; two 
views of, 263; what is ex- 
pository, 285. 

Prophets, the nature of their 
teaching, 170; the modern, 
and their message, 198; 
social message of the, 250. 



R 



Rainsford, W. S., the preacher 
for the times, 19. 

Rauschenbusch, Prof. Walter, 
on the "New Evangelism," 
342. 

Reality, the prime quality of 
ethical speech, 352; the 
mental and spiritual con- 
ditions for, 353; relation of 
Bible quotations to, 356. 

Reconciliation, Paul's expres- 
sion of the Gospel message, 
212. 

Religion, cant phrases of, 359. 

Resurrection, place of the, in 
preaching, 234. 

Righteousness, the Old Testa- 
ment word for life, 214. 

Robertson, F. W., comment 
on Elijah's dejection, 45. 



Salvation, definition of, 239; 
two views of, 263. 

Saul, Phillips Brooks' realistic 
picture of, 334. 

Scotchmen, influence of, and 
an educated pulpit, 68. 

Sensationalism, the evil of, 
in the pulpit, 368. 

Sensibility, spiritual, 138; the 
dulling of, 139; concerning 
sin, 143. 

Sermons, expository, the need 
of, 283; objections to, 283; 
two features of, 286; ad- 
vantages of, 287. 

Sheppard, Ambrose, the social 
conditions of the city, 242. 

Simeon, Charles, words con- 
cerning exercise, 41. 

Simplicity, the highest art of 
pulpit speech, 372. 

Simpson, Bishop, on the suc- 
cession of noble preachers, 13. 

Sin, a more present interpre- 
tation of, 269. 

Sincerity, the quality of a 
spiritual preacher, 122. 

Spenser, Edmund, quotation 
from the "Faerie Queene," 
16. 

Spirit, The Holy, for power, 
156 ; as a part of the Gospel 
message, 233. 

Spirituality, a definition of, 
120; influence of, 159. 

Stalker, Dr. James, pursuit of 
special studies, 80. 

Style, personal element in, 
363; influence of a disci- 
plined, 365 ; limit to the per- 
sonal elements of, 366 ; rela- 
tion of conscience to, 373; 
the moral purpose in, 370. 

Sympathy, a necessary quality 
of the preacher, 16. 



380 



Index 



Swing, David, concerning 
faith in men, 131. 



Taylor, Dr. A. M., the variety 

of motives that bring men 

to Christ, 273; definition of 

expository preaching, 285; 

the rich materials through 

expository preaching, 292. 
Teacher, the preacher as a, 281. 
Tennyson, Alfred, quotation 

from "The Poet," 173; 

"The Northern Farmer," 

362. 
Theology, technical terms of, 

in the pulpit, 360. 
Trollope, Anthony, the method 

of, 97. 
Truth, use of, in the Gospel of 

John, 7. 
Tucker, Pres. W. J., the 

unmaking process in the 

preacher, 96. 



U 



Unselfishness, the quality of 
a spiritual preacher, 123. 



Van Dyke, Dr. Henry, sim- 
plicity in pulpit speech, 361. 

W 

Ward, Mrs. Elizabeth Phelps, 
temptations to vanity in the 
preacher, 127. 

Warner, Mr. Charles Dudley, 
the extent of the minister's 
work, 89. 

Watson, Dr. John, quo- 
tation from Kate Car- 
negie, 152; the use of 
handbooks of illustration, 
357. 

Wesley, John, the demand 
upon the preacher, 90; the 
message of, 199; on Gospel 
sermons, 204. 

Williams, Bishop C. D., the 
"disintegrated conscience," 
337. 

Witness, use of, in the New 
Testament, 10. 

Wordsworth, William, "The 
Tables Turned," 59. 

Worldliness, Robertson's defi- 
nition of, 213. 



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